


Run boy, run

by beastdrips



Series: Never take me alive [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Origin Story, Pre-Canon, Qunari Culture and Customs, Saarebas, as interpreted by yours truly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2019-10-03 00:40:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17273852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beastdrips/pseuds/beastdrips
Summary: “Yes. The children say he’s saarebas,” Tama replied, and her voice sounded so hard and distant. Like she didn’t have any warmth for him anymore. “A shame his body has betrayed him with magic. He had such promise.”The Qun teaches that you have two options in life: accept your role, or accept your death. Adaar chose a third option.





	1. Saarebas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love my inquisitor, so naturally I made his life terrible. he was my first quizzy that i made back in 2014 and he’s held my heart in an iron grip ever since. no one else even stood a chance. his story has gone through numerous changes over the years and finally settled into this. it’s dark, horrible, traumatizing... but ultimately he does wind up one of the most powerful people in Thedas so it turns around
> 
> Title comes from _Run Boy Run_ by Woodkid
> 
> please, please proceed with caution as the first chapter does involve a child being hurt by adults. It will be the only instance of this happening and you can skip it entirely by just pretending the chapter ends at the asterisks
> 
> other **content warning:** mutilation

__

 

_Run boy, run_

_This world is not made for you_

***

 

“And this, what does this symbol mean?”

The child’s brow furrowed as he racked his memory, shifting where he sat and chewing unconsciously on his lip. His golden eyes focus intently on the map laid before him, the parchment illuminated by candles about the table.

“It means there is a pit?” he replied, uncertainty giving a questioning lilt to his answer.

“Very good, Ashaad,” the woman praised him, a proud smile on her face.

The child beamed instantly, his chest warm. Pride swelled within him, and even though he was so young he could easily picture his future ahead of him; sailing away from Par Vollen, spearheading an expedition to the Southern Kingdoms and discovering new places, finding answers for the Arishok.

The Tamassran had noted the boy’s talent for finding his way around places very early, how whenever she lead her group of children through Qunandar he would point out to the others landmarks he recognized to denote how far away from home they were, how soon they could go eat. She had decided to teach him how to read maps, and he was learning quickly. She was always pleased when she noticed great potential in a child, how their path in life was made so clear early on. He would be part of the Antaam, the military body which reached out across Thedas.

She affectionately nicknamed him Ashaad: _Scout_ , which the other children had picked up on as well. Tamassran was very proud of her assigned group, they had a wide set of skills and there were few she had any reservations about. Their social development was impressive, already forming close-knit bonds among themselves with very little interpersonal fighting or bullying. It was a welcome break from the previous group of children assigned to her, where there were a lot of bold personalities clashing.

“If you were to lead a squad through this area, what would be the best course?” Tamassran asked, infinitely curious as to how developed his strategic thinking was, how aware of terrain he was.

“Uhm..” Ashaad hummed, shifting once more and resting his face in his hands. He tried to picture the drawing before him as it was in reality, and though he wasn’t entirely sure, it seemed to be some sort of forest with dense foliage in parts. He thought about the soldiers he’d seen at the docks, readying for departure to Seheron, and their heavy armor. It would be difficult to move.

“Here,” he said, dragging his finger along the rise of a steep hill. “There’s not so many bushes there, so it would be faster than going through the forest.”

Tamassran nodded, though there was something pensive about her expression.

“Indeed there are no bushes, but the path is exposed. If there were enemies, they would spot you quickly and leave you open for an ambush,” she said, pointing towards the rise. “They could easily pick you off from above with archers.”

Ashaad shrank a little where he sat.

“I didn’t think of that,” he said, deflated.

“That is why you must study and learn,” Tamassran assured, placing a hand upon his head and giving an encouraging pat. “You must think of every possibility and prepare for them, so that you are never taken by surprise. Leave no room for mistakes. As you plan to move through an area, think also of how you could defend it; think like your enemy.”

“I understand, Tama. I promise I will study hard,” Ashaad said, his soft childlike features hard with determination. Tamassran smiled, then began to furl the map before them into a tight roll.

“Good. Now run off to bed, little one, our lesson went on longer than it should have.”

He got to his feet with gusto, giving his Tama a quick hug before sprinting off to the room he shared with three other children. They were already asleep, or at least laying still in the dark, when he entered. He stripped to his smallclothes and climbed into bed, mind reeling from the lesson. If they travelled light in favor of heavy armor, they could move through the forest without sacrificing speed and avoid the archers on the hill.

Ashaad smiled up at the ceiling. He reached up and touched his horns, felt them starting to come to a point instead of being stubby. He couldn’t wait to be a grown-up. He would turn eleven next month and then it’d be just another year until Tama gave him his official role in society. He already knew what he was meant to be; one who discovers land, explores countries and translates it into maps. He was going to see the whole world.

“Ashaad,” a soft voice whispered from across the room. “Why are you so late to bed, kadan?”

Ashaad looked to the side, peering at the bed on the other side of his own. Through the darkness he could faintly make out Aban looking at him, a girl just a few months older than him. She was an excellent swimmer, and always wondering when they could go past the docks again so she could see the great ships. They got along well, having the common trait of curiosity and a drive to explore. But while Ashaad’s domain was land, she took to the sea.

“Tama was teaching me how to read maps,” he whispered back.

“Do you think one day we’ll sail across the sea together?” she said, a hint of excitement in her voice.

“Maybe. We’ll be the greatest in the Beresaad.”

“Yeah.”

The two of them together would be unstoppable, with no stone left unturned. They were best friends, and he loved her dearly. He couldn’t imagine them not being a team. Surely they would take into account how well they got along? If they were separated, there was no telling how often they’d get to see each other, if at all.

Ashaad frowned and curled up on his side. He didn’t like that thought, but it’s not like they have any say in the matter. Tama would decide what their roles will be, and while they are similar perhaps they are still too different. He sighed and closed his eyes, pulling his covers up to his nose and tried to not worry about it.

He was on a ship on course to Seheron. The smell of the sea dominates the air and feels refreshing and exhilarating. Ashaad stood tall and fully grown, eyes trained on the horizon of what he knew was the Boeric Ocean, the warm waters that surround Par Vollen and Seheron. His white hair whipped about his face in the strong winds and he wished he’d pulled it into a ponytail to keep it out of his eyes.

He leaned over the front of the bow, looking down at water below. The water splashed and gave way for the ship, rolling over itself and foaming in an array of blues and whites. It was entrancing, almost seeming to pull him in, to draw Ashaad down into the deep. Before he knew it, he was falling. The water felt like nothing but hot air against his skin, but fear gripped his heart as he floated further and further down. If anyone noticed him go overboard, he didn’t know. The sun above him grew more and more faint, his lungs ached for air and the weight of the ocean was crushing him from all sides as he rapidly descended into the deep, many times faster than with the speed he knew he should be sinking. The further he went, the colder the water grew until he felt frozen all over, to the point that his fingers and feet were completely numb.

Then, suddenly, he stopped.

He tried to swim, but no matter how he moved his arms and legs the surface so faint in the distance didn’t seem to come any closer. It was at that point his lungs gave out and he inhaled out of desperation, but instead of his airways filling with water and drowning him he realized he could breathe just as well as he could above water.

“I can help you,” a voice whispered, seeming to come from all around him. Confused and frightened, Ashaad whipped his head around, as fast as one can whip around while underwater, searching for its origin.

“Who are you?” he tried to ask, but the water smothered his words. However, the voice didn’t seem to have any difficulty in understanding him.

“I am Fortitude.” As the voice introduced itself, a figure appeared before him. It was nothing but a blue mist at first, swirling in a slow deliberate way until it took shape in the vague form of a person wearing heavy armor. It never solidified, but were ever shifting and incorporeal. It was impossible to tell if it were qunari, or elven, or even human. Ashaad tried to move away from it, but still could not take himself anywhere. It was if the water held him firmly in place.

“I can help you,” Fortitude repeated, reaching out towards him. Ashaad knew what this was, what this meant, and his fear grew stronger. He was so cold.

“Get away from me, demon!” he yelled, arms flailing desperately in the water. What little light still shone from the surface disappeared and left him in darkness, illuminated only by the blue sheen of the demon before him. He thrashed about, a hand sweeping through the mist and dissolving Fortitude, the being whispering once more “I can help you” before disappearing completely.

Panicked, Ashaad tried for the surface once more, but sank only deeper into the dark.

He started awake, eyes wide and darting about the dimly lit room. It was in the middle of summer, yet he still felt as freezing cold as he was in his nightmare. As he came down from the fear, he noticed the other children looking at him in a stunned silence. He opened his mouth to assure them it was just a nightmare when Aban pointed at his bed.

“Ashaad… your bed,” she said, voice weak and tense. Ashaad looked down at his covers, and at once noticed they were frozen solid. He threw them off himself, and they fell stiff to the floor. No, no, no! This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t happening. He stumbled out of bed, his limbs too cold to move properly. The entire bed was frozen, frost making crystalline patterns all over the fabric, crawling down the legs and across the floor. It wasn’t just his bed - half the room was covered in frost.

Ashaad looked to his roommates, pleading with them with his eyes, looking for anything other than shock and fear in their faces. One of the boys, Katari, ran out of the room as fast as his legs could carry him. Aban suddenly seemed to snap out of it, and she bolted to the door, closing it hard and pulling up a chair under the handle.

“What are you doing!? He’s saarebas!” the remaining boy gasped, running to move the chair. Aban, however, was not about to let him do anything. She pounced on him, tackling the boy to the ground and holding him down.  
“Ashaad you have to run!” she said urgently, struggling to keep the boy down. Her eyes flickered over to the window, then back to Ashaad. “I won’t let them take you away. Go!”

Adrenaline surged through him, and Ashaad took to the window, struggling with the clasp. He heard raised voices outside the door, and the handle rattled loudly. As he tugged finally manage to tug the window open he could hear the thud of bodies slamming against the door, and with nothing but smallclothes on he climbed out the window, thankful for the jungle vines that grew along the building walls.

With fingers still numb from cold he descended the vines as quickly as he could. The sound of cracking wood sounded above him, and he could hear the raised voices clearly. Ashaad hoped with all his heart that Aban would not be punished too severely for helping him. He broke into a sprint, though he had no idea where to go. The street felt warm under his frozen bare feet, pebbles and rocks digging sharply into his soles and making every step uncomfortable, though as he ran he began to feel it less and less.

People were waking up, and he drew many eyes as he ran down the streets, steering clear of pedestrians and diving into alleys as often as he could. Where would he go? Did he stow away on a ship? Disappear into the jungle and hope he could survive? Right as he rounded a corner, a large calloused hand took his upper arm in a deathgrip. Ashaad cried out from the roughness of the grip, and from how it tugged painfully on his arm as he was forced to a stop.

“Easy there, boy,” a gruff voice said. “Where do you think you’re going in such a hurry?”

Ashaad didn’t reply, didn’t dare look at the man who’d caught him, afraid that if he so much as spoke it’d immediately give him away.

“Where is your Tamassran?” the man pressed, voice growing hard.

“I was going to… deliver a message,” Ashaad lied, looking down at his hands.

“At this hour? With no clothes on? You’re not very convincing, boy,” the man said. “You trying to run away, hmm? Become Tal-Vashoth at your age?” With a humorless chuckle, which was more of a grunt, the man easily lifted Ashaad by the arm, slinging him over his shoulder.

The man, likely a soldier, carried him all the way back home, and it was quite obvious where to take him considering the group of people speaking with urgent raised voices outside. A number of them were Tamassrans, his own Tama among them, and others who were likely Ben-Hassrath.

Heads turned towards them immediately and the soldier set Ashaad down on the ground, keeping a firm hand on his shoulder to keep him from running away again. Not like he would be able to; his knees felt weak, and he was shaking so bad it was all he could do to keep standing.

He kept his eyes on the ground, the fear far too strong for him to dare look anyone in the eye. Least of all Tama.

“I assume this one’s yours?” the soldier said as several pairs of feet approached them.

“Yes. The children say he’s saarebas,” Tama replied, and her voice sounded so hard and distant. Like she didn’t have any warmth for him anymore. “A shame his body has betrayed him with magic. He had such promise.”

The soldier grunted in acknowledgement, his grip on Ashaad’s shoulder tightening like he was dangerous. Like he could start summoning demons at any moment. He could feel Tama’s eyes on him and he fought to blink away the tears forming.

“Maraas shokra, Saarebas. Anaan esaam Qun,” Tama said. The phrase which once had been so comforting, felt full of purpose and guidance; a promise that he would serve his people. Now it had suddenly twisted into something condemning.

There is no struggle. Victory is within the Qun.

 

***

 

They put him in a cell; four blank walls without any windows or furnishings, or anything at all besides the heavy iron door. Ashaad went over to the left corner, sinking down to the floor and drawing his knees up to his chest. He thought he should be crying, but he felt nothing. It was like there was a gaping hole in the center of himself, slowly eating away at him and turning him into a hollow shell. He thought maybe he should have used magic to escape, but he didn’t know how to summon it, how to make it do what he wanted. Perhaps he was too distraught, too empty.

The wisdom of the Qun was carved into the walls and made the starkness of the cell even more daunting. But near the corner where he sat someone had carved something of their own, tilted and uneven. Desperate, almost. Underneath a passage, underlined several times: _HISSRA_.

He stared at it, feeling nothing. His face, hands and legs were prickling all over, like a thousand tiny insects were crawling beneath his skin. He wished he could feel the rage that had no doubt been behind the carving, to drink deep of the betrayal, but he couldn’t even feel like he was present in his own body.

The door opened suddenly with a shrill groan, and Ashaad pressed back against the wall behind him as three people entered the cell; two men and a woman. The woman carried a kettle full of red hot coal with an iron rod sticking out of it, and a large tool with two handles coming from a square piece of metal with a hole in the middle. One of the men held a heavy looking collar with chains hanging from it. The other man was elven, unlike the other two, and carried a tray. Ashaad knew the collar suppressed magic, but he could not see what was on the tray from his spot on the floor.

“Stand up,” the woman commanded. Ashaad felt his breathing pick up, and his eyes darted between the tool, the collar, and the grim faces before him. He couldn’t move, couldn’t will his body to do anything but sit there and tremble.

“I can’t,” he whimpered.

“You will not speak, Saarebas!” the man holding the collar snapped, and Ashaad flinched at the tone of his voice, ducking his head. “Stand.”

He tried to get his hyperventilating under control and pressed his palms against the floor. He could hardly even feel the cool stone on his hands for the intense prickling. He pushed, but could not get his legs to move.

“Vashedan,” the man swore and stomped over. He grabbed Ashaad by the arm and hauled him to his feet. It felt like he was about to fall over, or that his knees would give out, but he somehow remained standing, even as the heavy collar was placed over his shoulders.

It was a little too large for him, and the weight of it made his knees visibly shake from the strain of remaining upright with the additional weight. The chains fastened under his arms and around his torso, keeping it firmly in place. He realized that now that he was standing he could see what was on the tray.

He knew it was a bad idea. He knew he shouldn’t look, but he did.

There was a spool of thick white thread and a hooked needle, along with a vial full of liquid.

His knees finally gave out.  The man who had collared him moved to drag him up by the arm again, but the elf spoke up, “Leave him. It is better if he kneels.”

The man stepped back, and the elf approached Ashaad. He sat down on his knees in front of him, setting the tray aside. He took the vial and opened it, coating his fingers in the liquid and smearing it over Ashaad’s lips and eyelids. It smelled of elfroot. Next, he picked up the spool and the needle, and Ashaad had never seen something so ordinary as threading a needle be so utterly harrowing.

“Please,” he whispered so softly the others could not hear, but the elf’s ears pricked at his words. He looked at him, dark eyes full of pity, before bringing the needle to his lips and piercing the skin.

It hurt, of course it did, but it wasn’t unbearable. What made it unbearable was the purpose of it, not the pain itself. Ashaad tried to be as still as possible, didn’t want to cause a sleight of hand with his trembling. He didn’t dare to as much as breathe.

But the elven man worked swiftly, and soon enough Ashaad’s mouth was stitched shut. When he turned away to thread the needle with new thread, Ashaad tested it. He found he could open his mouth, just a little, though it aggravated the stitches. They were done loosely. So he could eat, he realized, but not speak without difficulty.

“Close your eyes,” the elf said. Ashaad felt a sob build in his throat, and tried to swallow it down. He knew if he obeyed, that’d be the end of it. If he obeyed, that’d be the very last time he closed his eyes. The Qun demanded he obeyed.

The elf’s sad brown eyes was the last thing he saw.

The pain was worse this time, but Ashaad did not move and did not make a sound. Soon enough his eyes were rendered permanently shut.

Thin trails of blood were trickling down his face, a dull ache permeating his eyes and mouth. Tears mingled with the blood and his lids stung from the salt. He couldn’t see, couldn’t open his eyes, could only listen as bodies moved around him.

Large, calloused hands grabbed his head firmly and he was confused for a moment before he heard the rasp of metal against keratin and felt a heavy pressure on his skull. The pressure quickly became pain, and he couldn’t even open his mouth to scream. There was a sickening snap, followed by a clatter as his juvenile horn hit the floor.

“Cauterize it,” the woman ordered.

Heat, then searing pain, which melted away into nothing as nerves burned away. Everything was done at a brisk pace; the tool around his remaining horn, pain, a snap and a clatter, the call for the hot iron, more pain, and then nothing.

“You are Saarebas,” the woman said. “Your role is to be lead by Arvaarad as a powerful tool for the Antaam. They will come to collect you, and you will follow, as is the demand of the Qun. Maraas shokra.”

The three left his cell, the iron door closing behind them with yet another shrill groan, and he was alone. Too stunned to think to do anything, Ashaad just remained on the floor.

Ashaad - no, he was Saarebas now - wanted to open his eyes, wanted to look to his right and see the Qun’s wisdom, see the ultimate truth someone had carved beneath it. Hissra. _Lies_. But he couldn’t.

Tentatively, he reached up towards his face. His fingers hovered for a moment before he touched his lips, felt the thick thread weaving in and out of his skin. Then he touched his eyes and finally let loose the sob that had been an aching pressure in his throat.

Saarebas felt his way over to the corner he had huddled in earlier and drew his knees up to his chest, hugging his arms tightly around them, and cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry, is all i can say.. it gets better. most of this is finished already, so updates will be fairly regular (unless school kicks my ass)
> 
> anyway: horns! supposedly there aren't any nerves or feeling in qunari horns, suggesting they're dead bone, like antlers, and painless to remove. except antlers are dropped and regrow each year, which does not happen to qunari horns. and! banter from Bull suggests qunari horns can get itchy and irritated; how would they be itchy if they couldn't feel them? SO, that makes them more akin to cattle horns, which are live bone covered by keratin and _do_ have nerves to a certain point and thus very painful to remove
> 
> the tarot card art at the very top is made by yours truly!


	2. Asaaranda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an update? already? that's right, babey! a huge, huge, huge thank you to everyone who has left kudos and comments.. it warms my heart and protects me during this cold winter
> 
> the biggest challenge w this fic is that qunari lore is consistently contradictory and, in some cases, lacking so for a lot of things i just have to wing it
> 
>  **content warning:** brief body horror (ft. spiders), but it’s not real

_Run boy, run_  
_Running is a Victory_  
_Run boy, run  
_ _Beauty lays behind the Hills_

***

 

Saarebas sat on the floor of his cell.

If he had been counting his days right, he would turn 18 next month.

It hardly seemed significant considering what he was, but there was still a sense of accomplishment about coming of age. He was hardly a person; he was a tool - a defective one - yet he had never been willing to let go of keeping track of his age. If he did, he’d lose a part of himself he’d never get back.

He knew he was just a drop of blood in the vein. He didn’t matter on his own, and yet- and _yet_ -

The door to his cell opened and he detected the unmistakable presence of his Arvaarad, the one assigned to lead and care for him. As his magic had grown, he had developed an ability to sense people around him without having to hear or see them. If they were around frequently enough, he would come to recognize them. Arvaarad stood there in the doorway for a moment before entering the cell, his boots loud against the stone floor.

“Always, without fail, you are sitting on the floor,” he said to himself, mystified, though Saarebas’ ears had grown keen from many years of being sightless, and he could hear hear it easily. “Dead center, every time.”

Arvaarad crouched down before him and fastened a rope to the square hoop at the bottom of his mask with a secure knot; his leash. Binding his arms came next, which was made easy with the shackles he wore around his wrists, as constant as his mage-collar.

“On your feet,” he said, and Saarebas stood.

“The Orlesian bas have agreed to return the Tome of Koslun to us. The Arishok himself will lead the fleet to collect it, and we are to be part of it.” As he spoke Arvaarad tied ropes from the mask to the shackles, further binding Saarebas, though it was more symbolic than anything. “The dreadnought waits.”

Ashkaari Koslun was to blame for Saarebas’ pain, for the state of his life, he thought bitterly. His Tome can burn-- no, no, not at all. The pain came from struggling against the world; Koslun found enlightenment in the desert, and created the Qun, and the Tome is sacred, and it holds the answer to understanding the world for what it is. It’s valuable to the people, it’s valuable to the priesthood. Saarebas was just joking, that’s all.

Arvaarad tugged on his leash to get him walking, and together they left the cell.

Saarebas did not hate Arvaarad.

He knew of Arvaarad who did not even bother speaking to their charges, and appreciated being lead by someone who remembered he still had ears - and thoughts between them. He rarely activated the magic suppressing collar, and Saarebas put much effort into ensuring it remained a rare occurrence. Having your life-energy sapped and quelled was beyond unpleasant and if avoiding it meant being obedient then he would be obedient.

Leaving his cell was the highlight of any given day.

Whether it was just to stretch his legs, or to evaluate his magic, or to travel somewhere, Saarebas was always glad to leave his cell.

After hours of the same four walls, the same stuffy smell, the same muffled sounds of people moving outside, coming out to the _life_ of Qunandar was like being allowed to breathe for the first time. Instead of dust he smelled flowers, instead of a weak draft he felt the caress of fresh wind against his skin. He could hear birds among the foliage and people talking about everything from work to “Itwa showed up with a torn shirt stuck to her horns again”.

It felt like home in a way that was painful, and Saarebas didn’t dare explore why it hurt so much.

A subtle shift in the air indicated they had reached a crossroad. A wagon approached from the right, its wheels churning loudly, and Arvaarad stopped to wait until it passed. It smelled of qalaba and grain, and the driver was singing a quiet tune, melodic and upbeat. She had a nice voice.

Saarebas followed Arvaarad as he continued down the street, imagining he could feel the pitying and fearful eyes upon him from those around. Or perhaps he was being ignored altogether, the people not wanting to be reminded of the threat from within. The breeze carried the salty smell of the ocean, and soon enough he was in range of hearing waves crashing against the ships and docks, and the shrill squawking of gulls along the bustle of people. He could hear shifting metal, indicating soldiers, and a Taarbas directing laborers loading cargo. Stone changed to wood beneath his feet. They were boarding the dreadnought.

Arvaarad’s footsteps veered left, as did the pull on Saarebas’ leash. Somewhere ahead of them a navigator was debriefing the plotted course, and normally he would pay it no mind, except there was something familiar about her voice. It kept nagging at him as they approached, like he was forgetting something important.

Right as they passed the navigator, something in his mind clicked. A single path suddenly splitting in two. A good friend whispering kadan across the room.

“Aban,” he whispered breathlessly.

She stopped speaking abruptly. Arvaarad came to a halt just as swiftly, and tugged on the leash hard enough to make Saarebas stumble forwards.

“What did he say to you, Kaaras?” Arvaarad demanded.

“He- He said ‘Aban’,” the navigator said, but not before hesitating to answer for a significant moment. “I doubt it was directed at me.”

There was a tense silence, then Arvaarad grunted. “You have not feared the ocean before, Saarebas.”

Saarebas was quiet.

“Hm. Keep walking,” Arvaarad said, and tugged on the leash once more. Saarebas’ shoulders sagged with relief. For a terrible moment, he had thought he had gotten either himself or the navigator in trouble, simply because he could not reign in his tongue - a ridiculous notion, considering he was not to speak at all. It was foolish of him. Even if it _was_ his old friend - probably not - it wasn’t likely she would remember him. Or _should_ remember him.

But before he was out of earshot, to the everlasting ache of his heart, Saarebas heard the navigator softly whisper, “I’m so sorry, Ashaad.”

It was like a spear through the chest.

They went below deck, the air turning stale and wooden as they descended the stairs. Through a long corridor, a turn to the left, then a right, and then down yet another corridor. Arvaarad paused briefly and Saarebas’ heard the click of a door unlocking, then opening.

“Enter,” Arvaarad ordered, stepping to the side.

Saarebas did as he was told, then stopped, awaiting guidance. Arvaarad followed and unlatched the chain which bound his shackles together. Saarebas let his arms hang limply at his sides, not stretching, not moving.

“We embark two hours from now. I will bring your meal two hours after that,” Arvaarad said. “We will reach Orlais in four weeks.” And with that, Arvaarad exited the room, closed the door and locked it again with a click. Saarebas waited for the muffled footsteps to fade away before he began exploring the room, rolling his shoulders and moving his arms in wide arcs.

There was a window at the far side of the room, barred and without a latch to open it, so there was no hope for fresh air. As he walked along the wall he bumped into a rather pathetically small table, and upon further inspection he found a stool next to it. Seven steps from the door to the window, five steps from the window to the table. He turned, dragging a hand along the wall and walked right into a piece of bundled cloth hanging from the ceiling. A hammock, five steps from the corner.

He returned to the center of the room and sat down. Two hours until they embark, four hours until his meal, four weeks until Orlais, eight weeks until returning home.

Saarebas laid his hands in his lap, palms facing upwards, and took a deep breath. It was just a deep breath; he would not sigh. There was nothing to sigh about, nothing to struggle against. Idly, he tried to remember what the ocean looked like, and doubted the image he conjured up in his mind was anything like it was in the real world. He wondered if his dreams would grant him an ocean. He wondered if he could make them grant him an ocean, or if that would turn him to the demons.

For all his suffering for the Qun, all he wanted was to see the ocean.

He breathed in deep again. No, that would not do. After all, the Qun did not make him suffer; _Mastery of the self is mastery of the world. Loss of the self is the source of suffering. Suffering is a choice, and we can refuse it._

He was only suffering because he was in conflict with himself. All he had to do was accept his place in the world, as part of the world. He was dangerous, it was necessary. For himself and for everyone else. Demons could lead him astray from the self at any moment.

_Suffering is a choice, and we can refuse it._

Another deep breath. If he could not see, the demons could not see. If he could not speak, the demons could not speak. Arvaarad did his duty well, to protect Saarebas from himself.

_Suffering is a choice, and we can refuse it._

He did not think of the cell with four cold walls, did not think of the mad carving beneath the Qun’s wisdom. The only betrayal is the one against oneself. The self is part of the whole. Betraying the self means betraying the whole.

_Suffering is a choice… and… and..._

He buried his face in his hands, sighing hard. _Lies_ , he thought to himself, over and over. _Lies, lies, lies, lies._

 

***

 

Four weeks became a blur.

The only evidence to the passing of time was the steady influx of meals in between sleeping; a thin gruel that could pass between his stitches and tasted of nothing. But despite his lackluster meals, he never went hungry, and never felt weak. When Arvaarad was near it was easier to know his place in the world, but once he was left alone with nothing but the faint sound of waves outside he began struggling with himself.

He repeated the cantos he could remember in his head over and over, yet arrived at the same conclusion each time - and the conclusion frightened him, so he made to forget it.

His dreams offered little comfort. Demons looked into his mind and gave him visions of a faceless Koslun rising from the earth and revealing the doubts in his mind to everyone around him. Eight-limbed Ben-Hassrath agents would descend from the walls and swarm him, then hold him down as they stitched his eyes shut all over again.

If he as much as screamed, his tongue would fall out on its own and dissolve into thousands of white spiders once it hit the floor.

He jolted awake and nearly fell out of the hammock, returning to his gift and curse of blindness. As he calmed his breathing, he thought that if there were any spiders in the room he wouldn’t know until they were crawling on him. It wasn’t a pleasant thought.

Though it wasn’t like Saarebas had many pleasant thoughts to begin with.

He stood when he heard footsteps in the corridor. Held his arms behind his back when the door unlocked, remaining turned away so his hands were in plain view from the doorway.

“We have arrived,” Arvaarad said and chained Saarebas’ hands, then circled around him to attach the leash to his mask. “We are to be part of the karataam that will accompany the Arishok in case the bas try something foolish.”

Saarebas doubted they would, but knew there was no point in taking unnecessary risks. He followed Arvaarad above deck, and they were joined by a few other saarebas on the way. As they made it above deck he took a moment to relish in the fresh air as their kith shouted commands to one another to prepare to dock. It was almost peaceful, in a way; the overhead cries of seabirds, crashing waves, people moving to and fro with purpose, and the fresh ocean wind whipping his hair about.

The dreadnought slowed to a stop, and Saarebas heard voices in the distance beyond the warship who did not shout in Qunlat. Humans; the Orlesian bas. He wondered if the rest of the fleet would dock, as well, or if they would simply remain in the bay.

Him and Arvaarad had not even taken more than one step on the gangplank before shouting erupted on the docks in tones far different from commanding, among them the Arishok’s deep baritone exclaiming in outrage.

“Make way,” Arvaarad barked and pushed Saarebas back just in time to get out of the way of the Arishok himself storming back onboard, followed by many more men. He could tell it was the Arishok that had just swept past him, because Saarebas knew of no other man alive with a presence of his intensity.

“The idiot basra have lost the Tome!” the Arishok announced furiously, disgust dripping from his every word. “A thieving pirate has stolen it right out of their hands. Turn the fleet around; their ship will not have gotten far.”

As the crew sprang to action, Saarebas had to wonder what sort of suicidal fool would think to steal from the Qunari, and then attempt to outrun them by sea. Surely they knew of the daunting speed of the dreadnoughts? They didn’t rely on favorable winds, but purely manpower alone. Each and every one of the rowers strong and focused, like ever-revolving cogs in a mechanism.

Saarebas was put back in his room, and four days passed with no news.

On the fifth day - his birthday - Arvaarad brought him on deck. The pirates had been sighted.

“We will be upon them soon,” he said. “When we are within range you are to freeze the waters and halt their advance. We cannot risk damaging the Tome with our cannons.”

It had been a while since he last used magic, and never on such a scale. He would have to reach far across to the place magic comes from just to know where the pirate ship was, and further still to turn the ocean to ice. It would be difficult, and he didn’t know if he could succeed.

“Arvaarad,” someone said, coming up to join them.  “Why is there only one saarebas?”

“Shanedan, Karashok. He’s the only one proficient in ice magic. The others wield only fire.”

Karashok sighed.

“Be ready. Dark clouds are gathering in the distance.”

Apprehension was evident in Arvaarad’s voice as he said, “The pirates are heading right for them. Does the Arishok intend to follow?”

“Yes. We cannot afford to lose sight of the Tome.”

“I hope it is worth the risk.”

It grew progressively darker as they closed the distance to the pirates, and soon enough it was raining hard. The winds grew stronger and stronger and made the ocean tumultuous, with waves tall enough to reach the deck and splash their legs.

The world beyond Saarebas’ closed eyelids flashed for a second, followed by deafening thunder. People were shouting orders, but he could not make any of them out over the cacophony of the storming sea. It was enthralling, like he could almost _feel_ its power.

Saarebas nearly lost his balance as the dreadnought rocked violently from ramming into something, or something ramming into it, with enough force to damage the hull, if the loud crack of breaking wood was anything to go by.

“We’re taking in water!” someone yelled, close enough to be heard.

Things happened in rapid succession after that;

The rowers were thrown off their pace, or perhaps even disrupted entirely by the hull breaking, and the dreadnought no longer had the momentum to meet the waves head-on. The vessel turned in the water and rolled from one side to the other with increasingly steeper swings until, eventually, the whole ship turned over.

Saarebas plunged into the ocean, along with everyone else.

The waters were fierce, and even if his arms had been unbound swimming was out of the question. It was cold, dark, and he couldn’t breathe; to say he was scared would be an understatement. He broke the surface for a split second, barely enough to take in air, before he was pulled under again. It was impossible to tell which way was up, and his body twisted and turned in the wild currents.

Suddenly his back slammed into something hard, likely a rock, and the impact against the shackles freed his arms. He flailed helplessly, unable to orient himself, and was painfully introduced to more rocks.

His head became very intimate with one, and he was promptly knocked out.

 

***

 

“--still breathing. He could be useful.”

It was still dark when he came to, that much he could tell, and cold rain was pelting down. He heard the roar of the ocean very close by, and judging by the softness of the ground he must’ve washed ashore. Someone was crouched over him. Their presence was unfamiliar to him. A second voice a few feet away spoke up,

“Then wake him up quickly. I can see them further down the beach. We shouldn’t linger.”

A hand on his shoulder shook him roughly, and Saarebas grunted to indicate he was awake - or at the very least aware. It felt like his body was still unconscious. He was hauled to his feet and by some miracle his limbs were still functional. If he had to venture a guess there was only the three of them there.

“Sten, they have spotted us.”

Sten, the one who pulled him to his feet, swore quietly, then tore the mangled shackles off of Saarebas’ wrists.

  
“We are leaving the Qun, Saarebas. Come with us,” he said.

Thoughts raced through his mind at such a speed he could hardly keep up.

The Qun demanded them dead for rebelling, or reeducated. If he killed them for their betrayal, he would be found over two dead soldiers and with no way of explaining they were Tal-Vashoth, and he would be killed. If he let them go, he would be found alone, separated from his karataam, and he would be killed.

If he went with them, he would be Tal-Vashoth. He would be a traitor. He would be hunted.

He would be alive.

A shiver ran through him.

“Sten!” the other voice said urgently, and the two of them took off running. The world shifted around Saarebas and he was fairly sure his heart stopped beating. Time slowed around him, footsteps in sand just as loud as the rain pattering against his mask. He had to make a choice.

He ran after them.

It was difficult to follow. Exhaustion made his feet heavy, lactic acid burning in his legs, and the wet sand slowed him down considerably. He was too far away to hear their footfall over the storm properly, even as it was subsiding from its previous rage, and was just barely able to reach out to catch the tail end of Sten’s presence. It was more like a whisper, a suggestion, than a clear direction of where to go.

The slippery sand turned into solid ground and at last he didn’t feel like he was continuously sinking into the earth with each step.

Rain changed from a heavy downpour to a faint drizzle and Saarebas scarcely avoided slamming headfirst into a tree as they seemingly entered a forest, judging from the shift in the wind. Everything smelled like mud and wet wood, homogenous and disorienting, but at least he could hear the others running now.

His lungs ached from the effort of sprinting, and he was so cold he could no longer feel his feet. This numbness made finding his footing on the forest floor difficult, and he kept tripping over roots and stones, bumping into trees and generally having a hard time finding his way. He was falling behind, without a doubt, and eventually he could no longer detect Sten’s presence.

His foot skidded away from him on a patch of mud, and he fell forward helplessly, too tired and surprised to catch himself. He hit the ground with a grunt, vaguely aware of the rain on his back. He was frozen to the bone, and now with mud smeared all the way down his front, no doubt. The sound of labored breathing and heavy footfall disappeared into the rain.

Vaguely, he thought to stand up, to get back on his feet and keep going.

Instead, exhaustion claimed him, and the sounds of the storm faded away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “but Rob, qunari women aren’t soldiers/part of the Antaam, why was Aban on the ship?”  
> Aban is not a soldier, she is a navigator. she doesn’t know how to fight and will not do any fighting and i _wanted_ her to be there. Besides, there were other women on that ship, canonically, such as Tallis!
> 
>  
> 
> while i doubt qunari celebrate birthdays, i do think they keep track of them because how else would the Tamassrans know when they were old enough to be assigned a role, or old enough to breed
> 
>  
> 
> Writing a blind character as a sighted person was a challenge and i hope i did alright


	3. Tal-Vashoth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we’ve gotten to the meat of the story, and it’s time for chapters to start getting longer
> 
> Again, a huge weeping thank you to everyone who has left kudos and comments!!! it’s beyond motivating and y’all are so, so sweet
> 
> **content warning:** nothing of note here. Just people being kinda rude? I guess?

_ Tomorrow is another day _ __   
_ And you won’t have to hide away _ __   
_ You’ll be a man, boy _ _   
_ __ But for now it’s time to run, it’s time to run

***

 

When he came to, Saarebas was no longer facedown in mud.

Instead of freezing, he was pleasantly warm, and comfortable despite the fact he was aching all over. A fur was draped over his body and he felt another small bundle of fur supporting his head. Another thing he noticed was how light he felt, despite the heaviness of his limbs. It was an entirely foreign kind of lightness. The reason struck him as he took a deep breath and no chains jingled from the movement of his chest. The magic suppressing collar - it was gone.

Before he could summon the strength to try and move, two voices speaking in common and another language he did not recognize seemingly just  _ appeared _ , as if he were in a room and they had just entered. From the differing pitches, he guessed it was a man and a woman. Though he did have some knowledge of common, their unfamiliar accents made it difficult to follow their heated conversation. That, combined with phrases and words from a different language altogether, made him clueless to what they were talking about.

The man seemed agitated with the way he spoke, no doubt directed at the presence of Saarebas, and didn’t seem to care whether he was listening in or not. The woman, by contrast, spoke firmly in an attempt to placate the man and kept her voice down.

The conversation eventually drew to a close and he heard them shuffle around, then jolted when he suddenly felt a small hand settle on his forehead. His mask was gone too.

“You’re awake,” said one of the voices, the woman, right by his side. Saarebas grunted an affirmative and she withdrew her hand. Was she checking his temperature?

She said something else - he vaguely recognized “help you sit” - and slipped her hand underneath him, squeezed between his shoulder blade and the furs he lay on. Saarebas understood well enough. He grunted and made an effort to sit up. His body felt heavy, his limbs weak, but with the stranger supporting his back he managed to sit up. He had to prop his elbows on his lap just to remain upright.

“Here, drink this.” A leather pouch was pressed against his chest, and he took it, exploring the shape of it with his hands. A waterskin, he realized, and immediately brought it to his lips. The chances of it being poison were close to none. If they wanted him dead, they would have killed him while he was unconscious. As he drank, the stranger continued speaking words he did not fully understand, though he was slowly getting used to her strange accent and recognizing more and more words.

He could catch the gist of what she said; he was found in the woods alone, he was injured, dehydrated, and needed rest.

Alone. The other two must have carried on without him, or the kith had caught up to them and just didn’t find him in the mud.

Either way, he was fortunate to have been discovered by someone willing to take him in.

“We had to remove your armor, to take care of your injuries and relocate your shoulder, but… well, we..  _ I  _ thought removing the stitches while you were unconscious might be overwhelming.”

She paused briefly.

“Do you want that? The stitches removed, I mean.”

It was as if his lungs did not know how to take in air. Of course he wanted that. That was why he ran in the first place, to be free of all that bound him and imprisoned him in his own body. Why he stumbled into the woods blind and weak because he couldn’t stand the thought of staying leashed another day, because he didn’t want to die for what he was.

But to be faced with it; to be asked it, truly, and know it would be given to him should he say yes. She offered it so casually, like it was so small a thing. Like it didn’t separate him from the rest of the world.

It was frightening. It was exhilarating. It was  _ hope _ .

“Yes,” he said - not a whisper - as well as he could with the stitches constricting his mouth, and it was the first time he’d heard himself speak in years. It hardly sounded like a word at all, and nothing like he remembered his voice to be.

“Alright,” she said. “Uhm, just give me a second.” He could hear cloth shifting, then the sound of metal sliding out of a sheath. His heart was hammering against his chest and everything was muffled and loud all at once.

She drew an audible breath, steeling herself. “We’ll do the mouth first, I think.”

He felt the cold press of a dagger against his lips, and it was so sharp the thread was severed with just a pull. Saarebas immediately reached up and pulled the whole thing out, ignoring how discomforting the sensation was, and tossed the thread away. He rubbed his mouth, revelled in the foreign feeling of  _ nothing _ . He could open his mouth and nothing would strain, could open it as wide as he pleased.

“My eyes,” he rasped, fists clenching tightly in his lap. He was so close.

“Oh, Creators. Okay, just- hold still? Very still.”

Removing the stitches from his eyes was a much more delicate task. They were tight, unlike the ones that sealed his lips. She held her breath as she slowly slipped the edge of her dagger under the thread. She murmured something indecipherable, and then gave her wrist a tiny flick.

The thread was cut.

She did this for every stitch, plucking out the smaller strings as she went. It was a slow process, but eventually she leaned away and said, “There. They’re all gone.”

He could barely breathe. After all this time.  _ After all this time. _

Slowly, he opened his eyes, only to immediately shut them again when the light was so bright it  _ hurt _ .

When the pain settled, he tried again, and slowly his eyes adjusted. At first, most everything was blurry. But the more he stared the clearer things became. Before him kneeled an elven woman, hardly more than a girl, with large eyes as black as night, and equally dark hair tied back in a braid. Dark swirls decorated her cheeks and forehead in intricate symmetrical patterns, and Saarebas recalled that the Dalish elves tattooed their faces. It seemed a clan of them had found him.

“ _ Aneth ara _ ,” she said and smiled. Elvish, he realized. The language he hadn’t recognized before. When he had familiarized himself with her face, he took in their surroundings instead, his eyes struggling to focus on things properly. Everywhere he looked he saw cloth walls and ceilings. A tent, most likely. There was another bed of furs besides the one he sat on, with a chest by the foot of it.

“Where am I?” he asked, staring at the mouth of the tent as it shifted slowly. There were shadows moving outside. People?

“In our camp, at the edge of the Planasene Forest,” the elf replied. “My name is Shiall. I’m the First of clan Sulahn.”

He didn’t know what a First was, but it was obviously some kind of rank within the clan’s hierarchy.

“You spoke to someone, before.” Hearing his own voice was beyond strange. It was rough and raspy from lack of use, and his vocal cords felt strained from speaking just a few words.

There was a mirror beside the bed, but he couldn’t see his reflection from where he sat.

“That was elder Yewran. He thinks bringing you here is a bad idea.” Shiall sounded regretful. “That it’s dangerous.”

“It is,” Saarebas said honestly. “But I am full of thank you.”

“You mean thankful,” Shiall said. Saarebas frowned at being corrected, embarrassed.

Shiall cleared her throat awkwardly, stood up and straightened out her robes.

“I will go tell the Keeper you have awoken. My sister, Shiovera, she’s a hunter - she’s roasting dinner right outside - go find her for food. I’ve asked her to offer you some,” she said, then added kindly, “Whenever you’re ready.”

Then she left, and he was alone.

_ Whenever you’re ready _ \- his own choice.

Freedom felt… strange. Here he was, able to see, able to speak, no collar upon his shoulders, and he couldn’t even begin to describe how he felt about it, about actually being Tal-Vashoth.

Lost, to put it in the simplest terms.

According to the Qun, he had just betrayed himself by denying his nature, and by extension had betrayed his people by turning his back on it. He was struggling against the order of the world and inevitable suffering was sure to come. Automatically, he sought the cantos for guidance out of sheer habit, and through thinking of the cantos he thought of all the things he tried to repress by reciting them.

Like how his future had been so clear, before his magic manifested. Tama had seen it, he had seen it, the other children had seen it. Why should it change because he had magic?

Frustration bubbled up in his chest. Frustration and grief, near overwhelming.

Why should it change because he had magic? How many others have had their roles so clear to them, had even lived within them for years, only for it to be taken away from them because they had magic? The magic didn’t change them, didn’t change their nature, just added another aspect to them. It was part of him, but not who he was.

The Qun had denied him his nature.

The Qun betrayed  _ him _ first.

Saarebas clenched his fists to stop them from shaking. He didn’t feel quite as lost anymore. Seven years ago, he had looked upon the remnants of someone’s rage and been unable to reach it.

Today, he found it as easily as he could locate his nose.

He was Tal-Vashoth.

He could laugh, or scream, maybe even cry, but he did none of these things. It was feeling so much at once that suddenly you feel nothing anymore. It was like choking on your own lungs.

He repeated that thought to himself a few times,  _ I am Tal-Vashoth _ , and felt better about it each time he did. He realized that he was free to do whatever he wanted, now. He could live like the bas did. No Qun to tell him where he should be, what he should be doing. No one was holding his leash. There was no leash at all.

The first thing he did as a free man was get to his feet, wobble unsteadily for a moment, and walk over to the mirror.

He didn’t recognize himself initially. He only remembered his golden eyes and the white of his hair.

But then the shape of his nose was familiar, just bigger than it used to be - his lips too. The spots of scar tissue from his stitches were partially camouflaged by brown freckles which speckled his entire face, spilled onto his shoulders and travelled further down his arms. He tilted his head down to get a better look at his horns. Or rather, where his horns would have been. They were just two short stumps poking out of his skull. A little mournfully he wondered what they would have looked like.

Enormous bruises covered his torso where he had slammed against the underwater rocks, and he thought himself lucky to not have broken any ribs. He twisted around to look at his back, and found bruises there as well, along with more freckles.

He looked at himself, at his stark white eyelashes, his plump lips, the soft curve of his cheekbones and he thought... Well, he thought looked nice, to be completely honest. It was a pleasant face that stared back at him behind the dark reddened circles beneath its eyes, the cracked dryness of the lips, the furrowed brows.

All he had on was pants, his boots nowhere to be seen. He’d never been one to wear shirts, even if he had no horns for them to catch on, so he paid little mind to his bare torso. Par Vollen’s heat made shirts unnecessary.

_ Whenever you’re ready _ , she’d said.

Well, it wasn’t like he had anything better to do, and if food was waiting outside...

Saarebas walked stiff-legged to the mouth of the tent and felt a well of excitement at the prospect of seeing the world outside. To see trees, and the sky, and people. With his heart in his throat he opened the flap and stepped out.

He found himself in a clearing. Everywhere he looked, there were trees vastly different from those on Par Vollen. Instead of wide and stocky with thick roots cascading over the ground, the trunks seemed to just spring out of the earth like grass. They reached up towards a clear blue sky, the storm having spent its all or moved on, and it very nearly took Saarebas’ breath away. The memory of an endless blue sky was nothing compared to the real thing.

His mind whispered that Aban’s eyes were blue.

The Dalish encampment seemed to cover a large area, with tents and wheeled structures all over the clearing, but it was difficult to tell if things were further away or just smaller. The structures were wagons, probably, though they looked nothing like the wagons back home (except that wasn’t really home anymore, was it?).

He’d never seen so many elves all in one place before. Some of them were pointing to him and murmuring to each other, others were merely minding their business curing leather, mending clothes, or polishing blades.

Scattered throughout the camp were grazing hoofed animals with strange curving horns, and they seemed to pay no mind to the Dalish among them.

To his right, a few yards away, he spotted the hunter Shiall had mentioned: a woman bent over a fire, roasting what looked like dathrasi. Like she felt his eyes, Shiovera suddenly looked up and noticed him staring.

She looked just like Shiall, except her face tattoos were different in how they swirled over her face in elaborate patterns.

“You’re him,” she said after a beat, straightening up. “The qunari mage Shiall dragged in yesterday.”

He wondered idly how such a small elf could possibly drag him anywhere.

She looked him up and down, lips pursed. “Don’t talk much, do you? Or did they cut out your tongue?”

“ _ Shanedan _ ,” he said. “My tongue is intact.” Shiovera raised an eyebrow, then shifted her attention back to the roast without further comment.

“What’s your name?” she asked, as if in an afterthought. She was brusque, and Adaar found himself liking her already.

“Saarebas,” he replied automatically.

She shook her head with a sigh. “I know  _ what _ you are, I’m asking  _ who  _ you are.”

He frowned. “I am Saarebas.”

“Oh for the love of- You really are fresh out of the shackles, aren’t you.”

It was only natural she didn’t understand. She was Dalish, born and raised without the Qun, without something dictating every modicum of your life from the moment you were born - before you were even conceived.

“I was made to be a weapon. That is who I am, regardless of my shackles,” he said. “It is what I have become.”

  
“But you’re free,” she pointed out. “You can be whoever you want. Every Tal-Vashoth I’ve heard of has picked a name for themselves.”

She made it sound so easy.

“Why have you not?” he asked, defensive and curious all at once.

“My name was given to me by my parents out of love. I like it.”

Saarebas frowned. Qunari didn’t have parents. He didn’t know what he wanted to be - except free. Hadn’t thought that far. Once, he had wanted to see the world, but the boy who claimed the name of scout had been slain long ago, and that name died with him. It was as he said; he was made a weapon, and despite being free he felt no different.

He blinked. A free weapon.

“Kaas-Adaar,” he said suddenly.

Shiovera tilted her head. “I’m sorry?”

“That is who I am.”

“Oh.” She seemed surprised to see him make up his mind so quickly, but she shrugged and said, “Well, Kaas-Adaar, I hope you like boar, ‘cause that’s all we found today.”

The boar was delicious; better than anything Adaar could ever remember eating. Fat, gamey meat after years of nothing but watery gruel was like reaching enlightenment, or maybe like the sex people seemed to like (not that Adaar would know). He ate as much as he could fit in his shrunken stomach.

Unfortunately, he found himself in the bushes just a little later heaving it all back up.

 

***

 

Over the course of a week, Adaar learned many things.

For instance, he learned that the Keeper, the spiritual leader of the clan, was always a mage - and by extension, so was their apprentice and successor, the First. This was a concept he could not even  _ begin _ to wrap his head around.

When Shiall asked who trained the mages under the Qun, and Adaar had replied that they were not trained, she had gasped and immediately gone and told the Keeper he “simply must be given proper training!”

Keeper Elethenar was less than thrilled with the idea, but agreed to it nonetheless, if only because an untrained mage was a danger to the clan. Adaar neglected to point out he had not given in to demons yet.

He learned they called the place magic and dreams come from the Fade, and the dam which separated it from the physical world was the Veil. He learned the names of the demons which would come to him while he slept. Despair and Rage, most frequently. He learned there was a difference between demons and spirits - a slight difference, but there - and he wondered if the entity which called itself Fortitude had been one or the other, all those years ago.

He doubted it would have made a difference.

No one asked him why he’d been bound like he was. If they already knew why or just didn’t want to know, he couldn’t tell. He suspected that Shiovera knew, but it wasn’t exactly something he’d want to talk about either way, in any capacity.

He also learned of the Dalish, and the gods they worshipped. Shiall told him about their tattoos,  _ vallaslin _ , and how they honored the Creators, and how hers in particular honored one called Falon’Din. She chatted about their legends and stories endlessly, and while her passion was admirable Adaar found he could scarcely keep up with it. Most of what she told him entered one ear just to trickle out of the other.

Shiovera was less of a conversationalist, but no less kind for it, even if her words were short and her manner blunt. She had seen him struggle with his hair on a windy day, and taught him how to braid it. She showed him how to properly skin and gut an animal, berating him for his lack of  _ necessary survival skills _ the entire time, and told him of the Way of the Three Trees.

The rest of the clan was polite at an arm’s length. They didn’t reject him but were not welcoming either, if you didn’t count elder Yewran who was very outright with his disapproval of the  _ polled oxman _ among them.

Most of them avoided him if they could, and Adaar’s social interaction was limited to Shiall and Shiovera, excluding the Keeper. They were twins; a single soul split in half and becoming two, and at times it was as if they could communicate even without speaking. If their vallaslin hadn’t been so different, Adaar wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart at all without speaking to them.

But above all, and probably most important, he started to learn what peace might feel like.

He had struggled against himself for so long because the Qun told him not to struggle. Ironically, without it he found there was nothing to struggle against.

But the Qun was still a dark shadow over him - it is not so easy to shake the one thing you’ve known all your life - and it took almost an hour before he remembered he could actually open his eyes when he woke up in the morning, and upon realizing that he’d then remember there was no Arvaarad to retrieve him and he was free to roam the camp unsupervised.

Three days into his third week with the clan, Keeper Elethenar found him seated in the grass surrounded by the curve-horned animals that pulled their wagons happily eating grain out of his cupped hands.

“The halla seem to like you,” he observed, one thin gray eyebrow raised with bemusement. He didn’t seem pleased.

“I like them,” Adaar replied. As time had passed, the hoarse rasp had eased off of his voice, and it had turned deep and smooth.  _ Melodic _ , Shiall had called it.  _ Cutesy _ , according to Shiovera.

“You must be very special. They rarely take to anyone that isn’t of the People.” Adaar couldn’t help but notice the tang of dishonesty in his words, like in no way did he think Adaar was special, but he would not let himself be bothered by it. He was a stranger here, after all, and they only let him stay because it was the First who had brought him there.

“But that is not what I have come to say,” Elethenar said.

Adaar got to his feet, and it was almost humorous how he towered over the aged elf. But the Keeper was not cowed by his looming height - or if he was, he did not show it.

“Ghilai’s daughter has been having recurring dreams of spirits.”

A halla nosed his hand, gently nipping at his fingers. Adaar ignored it. “You think she is a mage?”

Elethenar nodded. “We suspect her magic will manifest soon. It’s only a matter of time.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“I’d prefer not to have more than three mages among us. Some clans do not even permit more than two; the Keeper and their First. Normally, should there be an abundance of mages, we would give one to another clan at Arlathvhen.”

Adaar tilted his head, suspecting he knew what the Keeper was implying. Elethenar stared at the halla, momentarily distracted. It had resorted to chewing on Adaar’s pants. He shook his head and got back on topic,

“But you are not of the clan. There would be no splitting of families if you moved on.”

“You are asking me to leave.”

“Yes.”

Of course, Adaar knew he would have to leave eventually. It was inevitable; there was no place for a Tal-Vashoth among the Dalish. He had no part in their culture and heritage, and it wasn’t like clan Sulahn had taken him in with open arms. It was a temporary stay. Just a matter of when, not if.

“We will offer you what supplies we can spare, and tomorrow you will be on your way.”

Adaar dipped his head, “Thank you, Keeper.”

Elethenar nodded, seeming pleased for once, then left him with the halla.

He pet their soft furry faces absently up until they lost interest in him and carried on with their animal concerns, and without an excuse he had no choice but to go looking for the twins to break the news of his imminent departure.

He found Shiall sitting by a fire on the far end of camp, quietly whittling a piece of wood.

“Hello, _ lethallin _ ,” she said as he approached. “Haven’t seen you all day, which is impressive considering you are so very large.”

“I can be elusive, should I wish to. Where is your sister?” he asked as he settled before the fire. Shiall nodded to the left without looking up from her task.

“Over there, making eyes at Tennere, as always.”

He followed the given direction and spotted her leaning against one of the wagons and speaking to a tall hunter, who seemed to be in the process of fashioning a grip for his bow. He was blond, with an angular face and brown eyes - handsome, in a simple, uncomplicated way.

“I keep telling her to go ahead and bond with him already, but they just keep dancing around each other like skittish cats,” she continued, shaking her head. “Creators know what she’s waiting for.”

Bonding, another Dalish custom that was entirely foreign to Adaar. To establish an emotional commitment to someone wasn’t unheard of in the Qun, but to then also mate with them? Very strange, indeed. The Ben-Hassrath re-educators would be upon them in a heartbeat.

He wished he could stop thinking about the Qun.

“I am leaving tomorrow,” he said, staring into the flames. In his peripheral Shiall turned to look at him.

“Tomorrow? But you’ve barely recovered your strength! And you’ve only just started eating properly,” she said in a rush. “And there is still so much for you to learn of magic- and the Fade! You can’t leave.”

She grabbed his arm, then added softly, “Please don’t leave.”

Adaar looked at her hands, still having some difficulty perceiving the connection between  _ seeing _ someone touch him and  _ feeling _ someone touch him. He looked at her face, meeting her eyes. They seemed sad, he thought, though he wasn’t sure. He was far more certain of the sorrow in her voice.

“I must,” he said. “The Arvaarad would kill you all for harboring me. You do not deserve such a fate.”

“They will not find us,” she said fiercely.

“And your Keeper said there are too many mages staying in the clan, now, even if I am not part of it.” 

Shiall looked away, her pointed ears pinning back. He hated to be the one to crush her spirit, but staying would put them all at far too big of a risk. They saved him, gave him his freedom - the least he could do was ensure they stayed safe, and didn’t suffer for their kindness.

After a moment, Shiall sighed. “Where will you go?” she asked.

“I do not know,” he admitted. “What is the nearest settlement?”

“Kirkwall, but I hear the Arishok is there. You might want to go somewhere else. Maybe head north, towards Tantervale.”

“Then I will go north.”

“Or you could stay.”

Adaar sighed, “You know I cannot, Shiall.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but just then Shiovera sat down on Adaar’s other side with a deep sigh, stretching her legs out before her and leaning back on her hands.

“You weren't expecting him to stay forever, were you?” she said, swiftly joining the conversation, and Shiall closed her mouth with a crestfallen pout. “Chin up, sister. You’ve done all you can.”

While Shiall’s insistence was touching, he did appreciate Shiovera’s attitude as well. She took life as it was handed to her, and always in stride. She would have done well under the Qun, Adaar found himself thinking, despite himself.

“So, Adaar, I’ve been wondering something,” Shiovera said suddenly. It seemed the topic of his departure was dropped.

“Speak your thoughts,” Adaar said.

“Your hair’s white.”

“It is.”

“Your eyebrows are white.”

“Yes.”

“Shio, what are you on about?” Shiall said a little warily, leaning forward to look at her twin.

She ignored her. “Does that mean that the rest of your-”

“Shiovera!” Shiall shrieked suddenly, cutting her off and turning varying shades of red. The sheer volume of her interruption made Adaar jump, and several heads turn their way. “You can’t just ask him that!”

Shiovera just smiled pleasantly at her. “I was just curious. I know you are, too.”

“What!?” Shiall, somehow, turned a deeper shade of red. Adaar didn’t know skin could change colors so drastically. “I’m not! Why would I want to know if his- if the- _ that _ ?” 

“My body hair is white, yes,” he confirmed calmly as Shiall was having her crisis.

“Don’t answer that! Don’t encourage her! Oh, Creators.”

She buried her burning face in her hands while Shiovera laughed at her, and Adaar thought only of how he would miss them; his only friends in the world.

 

***

 

Tomorrow came far too quickly.

Adaar woke at the break of dawn, and didn’t forget he could open his eyes this time. He didn’t waste any time getting dressed; his old boots, his leather pants, a shirt that was far too small, and a ragged grey coat that made it difficult to raise his arms. It was time to bid farewell and be on his way.

When he stepped out into the camp he found Shiall and Shiovera waiting for him with somber faces, the latter stepping forward the moment she spotted him.

“I’m joining Tennere for an early hunt. I can’t linger, but I wanted to say goodbye.” 

“Of course you are,” Shiall said. Shiovera just gave her a look.

“Here,” she said, pressing a leather sheath into his hands. Adaar ran his fingers along the length of it, then grasped the hilt which stuck out of it and pulled out a long, curved dagger. There were faint patterns resembling winding vines engraved on the blade. It was beautiful. He immediately knew he would treasure it, always.

“It was my first dagger,” she explained. “It hasn’t seen much use, but I want you to have it. We’ve only known each other for a short while, but you’ve been a friend, Adaar.”

“Thank you. This is a fine gift,” he said, bowing his head.

She reached up and clapped him on the bicep. “Stay safe out there, big guy.”

“I will try to,” Adaar promised. Shiovera smiled, and lingered no further. Adaar watched as she crossed the camp and headed for the trees where she was joined by the handsome blond hunter, and together they disappeared into the brush.

“Don’t mind her. She hates goodbyes,” Shiall said and stepped forward, presenting a comically large knapsack that she was obviously struggling to carry. “This, uhm.. There’s food, and a filled waterskin, and some other useful things. Rope, I think, and a bedroll. Oh, and a map! Can’t travel without a map.”

Adaar accepted the knapsack with far less trouble, and as he did Shiall took hold of his hands.

“ _ Dareth shiral _ , _ lethallin _ ,” she said, giving them a squeeze. He didn’t know its meaning, but he could recognize a farewell when it was spoken.

“ _ Panahedan _ , Shiall. Thank you. For everything,” Adaar said with all the sincerity his heavy heart could muster. It had been a long time since he last had a friend, and it saddened him to have to part ways. Somehow, he managed a smile despite his sadness. “I know you will make your clan proud.”

Shiall’s eyes widened to the size of moons. “That’s the first time you’ve smiled,” she said. Adaar was a bit taken aback.

“Is it?”

She giggled, a little helplessly, “I didn’t know qunari could smile. Oh no, please don’t stop!”

His smile had faded at her teasing, and he only just managed not to flinch away when she reached out and touched his cheek.

“You have a nice smile,” she said, then kissed him on the other cheek. He was so much taller she had to hop just to reach.

Stunned by the compliment, and not entirely sure how to react, Adaar just nodded and said, “Thank you.”

Shiall stepped back, her cheeks flushed for reasons Adaar was ignorant to, and wrung her hands together. With ears drooping, she looked at the knapsack as he slung it over his shoulder with an emotion he couldn’t begin to comprehend.

“I’m going to miss you,” she said gently. That brought the smile back to his face, as sad as her words were.

“I will miss you too,  _ kadan _ ,” he replied, trying to match the softness of her voice. “Goodbye.”

And somehow, despite everything holding him down, he turned away from her and started walking.

He didn’t look back.

There were many people that he’d left behind in his life, or had been left behind by, but he’d never said goodbye to anyone. He’d never been given the opportunity. It made it sting a little less, but the hurt was there all the same. He owed so much to that small, remote clan of elves - to that mage apprentice who had just happened to find him unconscious in the woods, and by the endless kindness of her heart, helped him.

As he made his way through the forest and left clan Sulahn behind, he found himself hoping that maybe, one day, he’d see them again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Shiall might have developed a small crush on him… who would’ve thought
> 
> As of right now there is no official qunlat word for “free”, so i made my own /flex
> 
> I searched high and low to find out if qunari kiss, and found nothing. I’m deciding they kiss, and don’t rly differentiate between platonic and romantic affection, it’s all just love to them - sex isn’t part of the equation - so the compliment would be more surprising than the kiss was. What’s a smooch between buddies, ykno? Just a little kissy kiss bro. _I love you, dude_
> 
> Recovering from blindness is a phenomenon that there is very little info about, and most that i found concerns congenital or early childhood blindness rather than blindness acquired later in life which makes a world of difference when (re)gaining the ability to see bc of the development of the visual cortex in the brain and yadda yadda
> 
> obviously the running theme of this fic is: i can’t find enough info about what i’m writing and i’m crying


	4. Sataa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A WHOLE NEW WORLD, A NEW FANTASTIC POINT OF VIEW
> 
> This chapter turned into such a _beast_ i had to split it in half, so now we’ve got 6 chapters! [kids_cheering.wav]
> 
> people speculate that William “Iron Ass” Tully was not actually part of Valo-kas, but a different human merc company altogether that Adaar worked for previously, and for the sake of the narrative and the story i have in mind i’m going to take that idea and run with it
> 
> shoutout to Purple_Shade for giving me so many helpful pointers regarding adjusting to vision!
> 
> y'alls comments and kudos keep me warm at night. I think of them tenderly as i drift off to sleep with a huge smile on my face
> 
> **content warning:** violence!

_Run boy, run_  
_The Sun will be guiding you_  
_Run boy, run  
They’re dying to stop you_

***

Seeing again was strange.

It was impossible to tell where one bush ended and another began. All the foliage around him seemed to blend together in a single endless leafy green mass.

Adaar spent a solid hour just squinting at the map the Dalish had given him trying to read it. Not only were the common letters unfamiliar to him, but everything kept going in and out of focus like his eyes didn’t know what to do.

Most of his weeks with clan Sulahn he’d just tried not to look at anything too closely; content to have just let things stay unfocused to spare himself the strain and headache, even if it did give him a somewhat vacant expression that Shiovera had teased him about. He had always remained in camp. It had been fine. He was content just to see the light, colors and shapes of things again.

But out here, on his own, he had to actually _ look _ at things. Not only was there the map to read, but landmarks to recognize, terrain to consider. Except he wasn’t adjusting as quickly as he’d hoped.

He made to cross a stream and promptly underestimated the width of it. Instead of clearing it in a single leap, he misjudged the distance and ended up splashing straight into it and soaking his ankles. As he trudged onto dry land, he absently hoped he wouldn’t have to jump across any life-threatening chasms any time soon.

There were several times where he had to sit down and just close his eyes for while when the strain evolved into pain, made worse by the sun being high in the sky and making everything so damn bright.

After a while, it got even worse.

The sensory load teetered close to overwhelming. The sound of birdsong became sharp and grating, his clothes felt less like fabric and more like being encased in rough-grit whetstone, and he grew more and more upset like every little modicum of information his senses gave him did him a personal offense. It felt like being forced into a cramped space and pulled in every single direction all at once.

It got to the point where he found himself crouching on the ground and wiping away tears of frustration with anxiety, anger and shame a tight rope coiled around his throat, and all he wanted was for the world to just  _ go away _ . To disappear into blissful darkness where he saw, heard and felt nothing. He sat there, hiding his face in his hands, until the chaos slowly subsided and he felt like he could breathe again.

He continued his ascent up the Vimmark Mountains in spite of his headache and pressing exhaustion, hardly able to lift his feet.

By dusk he came to a small glen, and for whatever reason the world seemed less intense in this place. The setting sun shining through the canopy of trees gave it an inviting dappled glow. Either way, he was too fatigued to go on and decided it was a good of a place as any to camp.

He dropped his knapsack on the ground with a relieved sigh and all but collapsed to his knees. His feet were aching, his head pounded, his eyes hurt, and he was thirsty, hungry and tired.

In short, he was miserable. But it was a rewarding sort of misery; a product of his freedom. He tried to take solace in that fact. It would do him no good to slip into a sour mood.

He opened his knapsack and finally went through its contents properly. Earlier that day he’d only opened it to grab the map sitting at the very top without as much as looking at anything else.

The knapsack contained a length of rope; a full waterskin; linen bandages; a decently sized bundle of soft leather that he discovered was actually wrapping around a substantial amount dried meat; a bedroll packed so tightly it was more hard than soft; a small pouch with a few coins; and, inexplicably, a small solid object wrapped in red cloth.

Curious, he unwrapped the cloth and a piece of wood fell into his hand. He held it up to his face, moved it back and forth to try and make out what it was. It seemed to be carved in the likeness of some sort of bird, judging by the feathers and hooked beak. It even had little ears.

He remembered Shiall had been whittling something the evening before he left. He smiled softly, wrapping it back up in the cloth. She hadn’t even told him.

The bedroll was a little meager, but he’d take it over nothing. He sat down on top of it and drank heartily from the waterskin and ate two pieces of dried meat. It was tough and salty, but he was far too tired to even think about going hunting for fresh game, and anything decent becomes the best thing you’ve ever had when you’re hungry enough.

Sated and at least a little rested, Adaar got back to his feet to look for things to build a fire.

Scattered around the glen he found some sticks on the ground, and thicker branches that had broken off of trees. Along with that he gathered the dryest leaves he could find and carried it all back to his bedroll and knapsack.

He arranged the sticks, branches, and dry leaves in a pile and surrounded it by a ring of rocks to contain the fire, as he had learned from the Dalish. With fingers outstretched, he hovered his hand over the pile and thought of flames, hot and bright. He reached for it within the Fade, imagining heat dripping from his fingers, and froze the pile completely.

“ _ Vashedan _ .”

A few more sorry attempts later, Adaar gave up and curled up on his bedroll without a fire to keep him warm and tried to sleep.

 

The Free Marches stretched out before him, open and inviting. Everything was sharp and clear; he could see every little detail from blades of grass to the texture of clouds. From where he stood he saw the distant silhouettes of cities and towns and heard voices from far away carried on the wind. 

All of this awaited him, and he knew there were lands which lay even further; Nevarra and Rivain and Antiva and, well, maybe not Tevinter. He’d probably be better off staying clear of the Imperium.

A hand settled on his shoulder, and he turned to look up at Tama who smiled down at him.

“It’s the world, Ashaad,” she said and ran her fingers through his hair. “All for you.”

He beamed up at her, excitement coursing through him.

“I’m going to see it all,” he declared boldly and wrapped his arms around her legs. “I’m going to explore the whole entire world, just like you said I would.”

Tama chuckled fondly, her eyes warm with affection and pride.

“That’s right, little one. Your magic is going to take you further than anyone has ever gone before.”

His heart swelled with the praise, and he opened his mouth to speak but something gave him pause.

Something wasn’t right.

“My.. My magic?” he asked with a puzzled frown. Tama just kept on smiling.

“Of course. It gives you powers beyond regular people; you can achieve things they cannot,” she said.

He let go of her legs, stepped back and away from her. Something wasn’t right. Tama didn’t praise his magic. She had seen it and called for the Ben-Hassrath to take him away, had called him Saarebas in that cold, distant voice.

“You’re not Tama,” he realized with an ache.

The demon wearing Tama’s face tilted its head with a gentle expression.

“Does it matter?” it said, and suddenly its voice had several layers, like it couldn’t decide what to sound like. “I can give you everything you want; to be accepted, to be loved for  _ who _ you are, not hated for  _ what _ you are. I can help destroy those who would bind you.”

It offered its hand to him.

“Just let me in, and I will give you all that you desire.”

It was so easy to imagine. Taking that hand, slipping into the illusion of Tama’s warm embrace and emerging into the world with powers so great no one would dare oppose him. People would be in awe of him, love and fear him all at once. He’d be unstoppable. Nothing could threaten his freedom. Except-

Adaar took another step back, face hardening.

Except for the demon whispering in his ear.

“No,” he said.

The demon sighed, its hand dropping, and as it began to fade away he heard it say, “Pity.”

He woke up cold and shivering.

 

***

 

A few days travel into the mountains Adaar came across his first human settlement; a village so small and unimportant it wasn’t even marked on the map. Or, alternatively, his map was older than the village was.

He headed for it regardless, and spotted two humans seemingly just standing around by a chicken coop and watching the birds as they clucked and foraged. One of them noticed him approaching, and elbowed the other in the ribs to get their attention. As he got closer, it became clear that they were women.

“ _Shanedan_ ,” he greeted. The two villagers said nothing and just stared at him like he had two heads.

“I have journeyed far. Is there a place where I can rest?” he asked. They glanced at one another, uncertain if they should answer or not.

“That’d be the tavern. Old man Gwyn runs it. Biggest building in the village; can’t miss it,” one of them said.

He thanked them for the information with a polite dip of the head.

As he turned to leave, the other piped up, “Don’t cause any trouble, qunari. We like our peace.”

Adaar elected not to reply and simply carried on. He was quickly coming to realize people were hesitant to trust those different from them. It seemed to matter little whether he was Tal-Vashoth or Qunari; so long as he was tall and grey-skinned they were particularly wary of his intentions.

Though it wasn’t like his people -  _ former _ people, he corrected - had made any particular effort of making themselves likeable, so he supposed he couldn’t blame the humans for keeping an extra keen eye on him. The Qunari conquering lands and forcing people to convert was one thing, but many Tal-Vashoth became little better than hooligans when they turned away from the Qun.

Not all of them, but plenty enough.

  
Finding the biggest building in the village was easy - it even had a sign hanging above the door, though the paint was far too faded for him to make out what it said - and he could smell the alcohol before he even entered. It was dimly lit, and there were rather few patrons scattered about the tavern, some drinking alone, some sitting at tables in groups and laughing loudly. Past all the tables and seats was a counter stretching along the entire far wall.

Behind the counter stood a scrawny and wizened human - Old man Gwyn, he assumed - wiping a tankard with a ragged cloth, with several more tankards stood all in a row in front of him. His hair had long since lost all its pigment, and his eyebrows and beard were so bushy they concealed most of his features. He did a double take when Adaar entered, then blinked at him like he couldn’t believe his eyes. By the time Adaar had reached the counter, however, he seemed to have gotten his bearings.

“Good day, serah. Don’t see much of your kind up here. What can I do for ya?”

“A bed,” Adaar said, then remembered his manners. “Please.”

“Bed’s five sovereigns a night.”

Adaar retrieved the little pouch of coins and peered inside to see ten silver coins, three copper, and two gold.

“I do not have five sovereigns.”

Gwyn demonstrated an impressive flexibility of his eyebrows by raising one halfway up his weathered forehead.

“Afraid there’s not much I can do, in that case,” he said and resumed wiping the tankards, markedly losing interest.

Adaar sighed. “Sorry to have bothered you,” he said and made to leave. He’d just have to sleep outside again - away from the village. Maybe this time he’d actually manage to start a fire, and it’d work out anyway. Maybe.

He was almost to the door when Gwyn suddenly yelled, “Wait! You, qunari, come back here a second.”

Well, alright. He turned back around and returned to the counter.

“Tell you what.” Gwyn clasped his fingers and leaned on the counter. “You’re a big strong-looking bastard. You do me a favor, and I’ll get you a bed and a warm meal to go with it. How’s that sound?”

Too good to be true, for one. 

“What kind of favor?” he asked.

“Some physical labor a scraggly old man like me can’t do.”

The physical labor in question turned out to be repairing a roundpole fence so his granddaughter could play in the backyard again without having to be watched like a hawk, the diagonal boards making them difficult for a child to climb. While Adaar was no construction worker by any means, he could haul the wood easily enough and did manage to build a decent fence with Gwyn’s directions.

It didn’t fall over when he turned around, at the very least.

While it wasn’t the most dignified work, it did earn him a comfortable place to rest his head and a warm meal in his belly, and he couldn’t be more content when he settled in for the night.

 

***

 

He woke early the next day, bid Old man Gwyn farewell and thanked him for his generosity, and left the village behind him.

According to the map, Tantervale was still a long ways to go.

Fortunately, once he made it down the mountain finding the road north was a simple task. Tired from the long trek, Adaar was thankful for the paved stone promising a smooth journey that wouldn’t require going up and down and all around. It was calm. Peaceful, even. Nothing to join him but the breeze rustling the odd tree along the road.

Until he spotted a group of humans dressed in dark leathers ahead, that is. They were loitering on the edges of the road, leaning against fences and chatting disinterestedly among themselves. Highwaymen, without a doubt. Hopefully they’d decide a Tal-Vashoth twice their size was not worth the trouble and let him pass without incident.

A foolish hope, since the moment they spotted him they moved onto the road proper, blocking the path. One of them swaggered to the center of it, crossing his arms and cocking his head to the side as he watched Adaar approach. He stopped an odd couple of feet away from him, and the others wasted no time surrounding him.

After all, an unarmed Tal-Vashoth was still unarmed.

“I thought oxen travelled in herds,” the leader commented in a lazy drawl. “Seems this one got lost.”

The group of men snickered and Adaar very nearly rolled his eyes. Naturally, they had to be unpleasant on top of criminal.

The bandit sucked on his teeth as he sized him up, then said, “Where you headed, friend?”

Adaar kept his head facing forward as he glanced at the others, wary of any sudden movements. Three men on his left, two on his right. All of them were armed with blades. No blunt weapons, no archers, no mages.

“I do not see how my destination matters to you,” he replied evenly, eyes settling on the leader. The bandit threw his hands up like Adaar had snapped at him.

“Just makin’ conversation, don’t have to get testy.” His hands dropped as quickly as they rose, and one of them settled on the hilt of his sword. “I can tell you don’t like to beat around the bush.”

He made a wide sweep with his arm, indicating the road they were standing on.

“You see, these roads here are ours, and whatever’s on them is ours too. So, considerin’ you’re on them...” He rapidly flicked two fingers in a beckoning gesture. “Turn your pockets over, or we turn ‘em over for you.”

“I carry nothing you want, bandit.”

“I mean I  _ could _ take your word for it, but as it stands I am disinclined to do so,” the leader replied, emphasizing ‘disinclined’ with a condescending dip of the head and what would have been a curtsy if it weren’t for the fact that he barely moved. The rest of the band drew their weapons, as if on cue.

“You do not want to do this,” Adaar warned, shrugging his knapsack off his shoulder and dropping it at his feet. Shiovera’s dagger on his belt was concealed under his coat. If worse came to worst, he could use that.

“Oh, we do.”

They likely expected to just cut him down, but Adaar wasn’t about to let that happen. If anything, he would not go down easily. As the bandits advanced, he took a deep breath and reached into the Fade.

Sharp pillars of ice shot out of the ground around him like spike walls, blocking their approach and even impaling one of them who got too close, too fast.

“He’s a mage!” one of the bandits shouted in alarm, stumbling back from a spike that had missed his face by a hair. “No fucking shit!” another one yelled. Though they were taken by surprise, they didn’t remain stunned for long. The five men rounded around the pillars and continued towards him. Adaar tried for the life of him to remember how to form a protective barrier, though he’d only had a measly few weeks to learn.

As he heaved his arms up to cast he heard the sound of cloth tearing, and the restraining tightness around his arms and shoulders disappeared. The barrier formed just in time to prevent a bandit’s sword embedding itself in Adaar’s face. He reached into his coat and drew Shiovera’s dagger, surging forward to sink it deep into the bandit’s gut. As he pulled out the dagger, the bandit fell forward to his knees from the shock.

Adaar stepped around him and spun around, backing away from the other three through the space between two ice spikes.

Three. There were supposed to be four of them.

He cried out when a blade caught him in the shoulder, sending pain shooting up his neck and down his arm. The leader of the band had crept up on his left. Thinking fast, he grabbed the wrist of the assailant and held on tightly. Before the bandit could even try to yank out of his grip, ice began to rapidly creep up his forearm. He barely had the time to react before he was encased in it, made into a frozen statue in the middle of the road.

The remaining three men stared at it, blades slack in their hands. One of them shuffled back, his grip firming, then evidently decided it wasn’t worth it in the end and turned tail and ran. The other two looked at him, then each other, and followed suit without a word.

It was just as well for Adaar that their cowardice proved greater than their murderous greed, or any desire for vengeance. He would prefer not to spill more blood than necessary, even if it was the blood of wretched thugs.

He hissed in pain as he ducked away and the sword slid out of his shoulder. The wound was bleeding quite profusely, and it stained the clothes the Dalish had given him a deep red. Along with the coat having torn during the fight, it spelled the end for his meager garments. He removed the coat and held it up to examine. The sleeves were barely hanging on to the rest of it, and the back had split in the middle all the way from the collar to the waist. Adaar sighed and tossed it aside.

He pressed his hand down on the wound to halt the bleeding as he went back to his knapsack and dragged it to the edge of the road. He crouched down stiffly to dig through it with one hand in search of his waterskin and some clean bandages to clean and dress the injury. He was lucky he only ended up with the one.

He was attempting to ease out of his tiny shirt (it barely reached past his waist, and the sleeves were cut off) when he picked up on the churning of wheels. Smothering the apprehension that rose in his throat, he stood up, bloody shirt in hand, and saw a wagon approaching. It was pulled by a large mule, fairly old judging by the prominent hips and shaggy pelt, and flanked by well-armed men of a notably different caliber than the highwaymen Adaar had just faced.

Mercenaries. His heart sank and he hoped it didn’t mean another fight.

“By the Ancestors, what happened here!?” the driver exclaimed, a dwarf with flaming red hair and a beard long enough to touch his chest divided into three braids. Adaar had never seen a dwarf before, but he’d heard them described as short, stocky, and bearded, and the man certainly fit that description.

“Bandits bit off more than they could chew, obviously,” the woman seated next to the driver said, a young dwarf with equally bright red hair and long curling sideburns that reached halfway down her jaw. “Is that one  _ impaled _ ? By  _ ice _ ?”

“They tried to rob me,” Adaar said in way of explanation.

“Of course they did,” the driver said with a sigh, then turned to one of the mercenaries - who were all eyeing Adaar warily. “Well, we’re gonna need to clear the road so the wagon can get through. I’m already paying you lot so you might as well hop to it.”

The mercenary he’d addressed made a face like he did not want to do that at all, but then turned to the others and said, “Get the mauls.”

While the mercenaries got to work in smashing the ice blocking the road, Adaar knelt back down to continue what he was doing before the entourage showed up. He found his waterskin and uncorked it with his teeth, then poured water over the cut in his shoulder. With the wound rinsed, he was left with the task of figuring out how to bandage it adequately when one arm was attached to the wound in question.

“Do you need some help?”

Adaar looked up to see the young dwarven woman standing in front of him with her hands on her hips. He simply stared at her at first, baffled by the question. The world of bas was a strange one. It was impossible to predict if they would extend a hand to assist, or smack you with it, if they didn’t just ignore you between distrusting glances. He decided he would be a fool to reject the offer and nodded.

“Help would be appreciated,” he said and offered her the bandages. She took them and immediately set to wrapping them around his shoulder, tight enough to put pressure on it and be secure, but not so tight it would restrict his blood flow.

“I’m Olivia, by the way,” she said. “That’s my father Gerram back there.”

Adaar glanced past her shoulder back to the wagon, where the other dwarf seemed content to just sit and watch them closely. He wondered if the red hair was a dwarf thing, or a genetic thing.

“You’re an apostate, right? What’s your name?” Olivia continued.

“Kaas-Adaar,” he replied. “Is apostate the dwarven word for my kind?”

Olivia snorted. “What? No. The dwarven languages are pretty dead. Apostate is an illegal mage.”

She gestured vaguely with her hand. “Y’know, living outside a Circle. Though I’ve never heard of a qunari in a Circle.”

He did not know - but he  _ had _ heard of Circles, if only briefly. A place where the bas put their mages. Seemed better than the alternative he personally knew, but in the end what difference did the size of the cage make? Your own body, or a building.

“Seems a little silly, now that I think about it. I mean, what’s a templar gonna do against a qunari? Besides pray.”

She tied off the bandage and gave it a little pat before he could even begin to think about what to say.

“There, all fixed up. Are you heading north by any chance?”

Olivia spoke briskly, like she had to speak every one of her thoughts as soon as possible. It was a little difficult to keep up with.

“Yes. I am going to Tantervale,” he said and got to his feet. For a moment he reeled at the fact that you could stack another Olivia on top of this one, and they’d still not reach his eyes. She seemed to think nothing of it, despite the fact that her head was tilted all the way back just to look at him.

“So are we! You can tag along if you want. Might save your other shoulder if there’s more bandits along the way.  _ Pa _ !!” she suddenly screamed, making Adaar jump, and twisted at the waist to look over her shoulder.

“Yes, sugarplum?” her father replied sweetly, a stark contrast to how he’d spoken to his hired mercenaries earlier.

“Kaas here is joining us.”

“If you say so, sweet pea.”

And by the decree of this tiny woman, once the road was cleared Adaar found himself seated on Gerram’s other side at the front of the wagon (Olivia had insisted it would be cruel to make him walk, seeing as he was injured) and listening to him rant about the Dwarven Merchant’s Guild.

Gerram had a number of uncouth things to say about someone named Varric Tethras, though he never caught exactly what the man did to invoke such ire.

“So, what is your business in Tantervale, Serah Kaas?” Gerram asked, his tone switching from irate to chipper in the matter of seconds.

“That remains to be seen,” he replied. Without much of a goal, he wasn’t quite sure what to do. He’d reach the city, and then what? See the world? Without gold, he wouldn’t get very far.

“You could always sign up with us,” one of the mercenaries said, having listened in. He was walking close to the front, his hand resting leisurely on the hilt of his sword. “Taking out three men alone with just one cut to show for it is pretty impressive, and we haven’t had a mage in a while.”

“There were six of them,” Adaar said. The mercenary’s eyebrows disappeared underneath his shaggy fringe.

“Six?”

“The remaining three fled when I froze their leader.”

“Andraste’s ass. Well, like I said, you could join our company.”

Adaar chewed on his lip, staring at the road as it rolled beneath the wagon. Wandering around broke and aimless, or earning his keep as a mage-for-hire?

“Do mercenaries travel much?” he asked after a moment.

“Oh yeah. We’ve been making our way back from Wycome. We usually stick to the Marches, but occasionally we’ll end up somewhere else. We were tearing it up in Val Royeaux just a few weeks ago.”

Put like that, it was certainly tempting. He knew many Tal-Vashoth ended up as mercenaries - seeing as the majority were part of the Antaam, and fighting was all they knew. Of course, selling their swords, their souls, was considered beyond dishonorable, but Adaar had no tool to which he could bind his soul.

“I will think on it,” he said eventually. The mercenary merely shrugged. Adaar’s joining or not was inconsequential to him.

“Alright.”

 

The journey to Tantervale took several days, but it was a vast improvement from when Adaar had travelled on his own.

There was a campfire every night, for one thing, with cooked meals and the mercenaries swapping tales of ridiculous jobs they’d taken. While he suspected the truth had been somewhat embellished to make a good story, the reminiscing and apparent camaraderie between them all had a certain appeal. He wondered if they’d be willing to include him in it, should he choose to join.

He learned the mercenary who had extended an invitation to him was named Barley.

The city of Tantervale rose in the distance by the end of the week, with massive stone walls and watchtowers protecting it from the outside world. The gates were already open when they arrived, and they passed through without issue. The stationed guards barely even looked their way.

Gerram pulled the wagon to a stop once they were through the gates, and Olivia quickly hopped off and disappeared around the back of it.

Adaar got off the wagon as well, and found himself at a loss.

The last time he’d seen a city was back when he lived in Par Vollen, and Tantervale was nothing like Qunandar. The buildings were tall, white, and timber-framed, and each extra floor jettied out over the street below. 

The streets were bustling with people. Humans and dwarves and elves alike. There was so much movement Adaar almost felt dizzy, and the buildings begun to warp and shift along with the crowd.

Barley came up next to him.

“The Chantry is all but obsolete here, so you shouldn’t have to worry about Templars. But you don’t carry a staff to begin with, so no one oughta bother you,” he said.

Adaar nodded, still looking at all the city folk, how all the faces just seemed to be one and the same over and over. This place wasn’t familiar like Qunandar, how would he even begin to navigate a human city? And even if Templars were scarce, and the Southern countries were far more lenient on mages than the Qun, he did feel a sort of apprehension when thinking of dealing with what he could only describe as _basvaarad_.

“‘Course, you could always come with us.”

Adaar looked at Barley then, who simply looked back at him with arms crossed, and he was faced with a choice.

A human city alone, or a human city with a kith.

“I could. And I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i should be writing a COPD case. instead i finished this
> 
> having trouble visualizing the cast? [I doodled a bunch of the supporting characters!](https://twitter.com/beastdrips/status/1083412573658234881) the link leads to my twitter where i post updates, art, and various nonsense
> 
> when i was trying to find out what a roundpole fence was called specifically i discovered that this type of fence is, apparently, exclusive to scandinavia. so naturally when i asked my american friends "what's that old wooden fence that's stacked diagonally called" i was met with confusion. it's rly gnarly looking just google it and see
> 
> We’re over halfway through now and i’m Really very excited for the next chapter because Reasons


	5. Nehraa Vashoth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This half features a cameo from a beloved canon character, and a whole lot of Chris’ handsome boy Kilian (Chris is @radikatt on twitter, please give him lots of love)
> 
> I know, i know; “Rob, it’s been months!! where have you been?” well i scrambled to finish school, graduated, then went on a 3-month vacation to visit my fiance and during all this i got deeply, Deeply engrossed in elder scrolls and this fic got put on the backburner for a while. I’d occasionally hear a song i associate with adaar and think of the WIP of this chapter sitting on my drive forlornly and a little guiltily
> 
> Speaking of associating songs, if you want to Access Emotions™, [i made a playlist for Kaas-Adaar](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/42kp3rGkTrwsRpEnvlcd9M?si=d9gxegx0SDitfzeUbeU3Pg). I may or may not have gotten emotional over the epic _somewhere over the rainbow_ cover several times
> 
> Thank you all so much for your comments and kudos!! I’m so happy ppl love my large son
> 
>  **content warning:** violence, brief gore and c-ptsd; dissociation and suicidal ideation

_Tomorrow is another day_  
_And when the night fades away_  
_You’ll be a Man, boy_ _  
But for now it’s time to run, it’s time to run_

***

Adaar had once heard the human expression “trying to find a needle in a haystack” and found it humorous, but markedly appropriate for describing certain situations.

Situations like the one he was currently in, for example, except he wasn’t trying to find a needle, but follow one. The needle being Barley, a human, and the haystack a busy city full of other humans.

Barley was so ordinary-looking Adaar kept mixing him up with other people, and with his eyes being in the state they were in keeping track of him was near impossible. The back of his head looked just like the back of someone else’s head, or someone passed in-between them and disrupted his concentration, or Barley rounded a corner and broke the line of sight for a moment.

But then he noticed a distinguishable characteristic, provided he could focus his eyes on it; part of Barley’s right ear was missing, and he stared at it until his eyes started hurting so he wouldn’t lose him in the crowd. Human ears were dreadfully small, after all, so it took a lot of effort.

Then after endless streets, alleys and turns that all looked the same, Barley came to a stop in front of a building with a broken window. A sign hung above the door that read ‘The Bleeding Oak’, which made for an odd, if not disturbing mental image. A tavern, then.

“Here we are. The company should be cooped up inside, usually,” Barley said and pushed the door open.

The noise hit him before anything else. People’s voices were loud from drink, and made even louder to be heard over everyone else.  It was a vast difference from the tavern Adaar had been to in the mountains; every table was full, with patrons leaning halfway into each other’s laps just to fit around them. The air was warm and heavy with the odor of sweat and ale, and he had to wonder how anyone would willingly spend time in such an unpleasant place.

Barley scanned the crowd with his hands on his hips and a knot between his brows, then lit up with recognition when a woman approached them. She was dressed in the same dark uniform as Barley, with several small scars marring her face. She was also, somehow, carrying five large tankards at once.

“There you are, Ley. The others showed up a moment ago. We just started the first round,” she said with a wide smile that dimpled her cheeks. Her accent was familiar, but Adaar couldn’t place it. It wasn’t a Marcher accent, that was certain.

Barley returned the smile, though his was far smaller. “I’ll join you in a bit. Where’s Tully?”

She pointed her tankards towards a table further into the tavern. “Iron Ass? Right over there.”

“Cheers, Raina,” Barley said and clapped her on the shoulder as he moved past her, heading for the table she had pointed out. Adaar stood there for a second, then followed him before the other mercenary, Raina, could stare too deep of a bewildered hole into his skin.

The table was as crowded as every other, with most of the people seated dressed in that very same mercenary uniform, with the occasional variation that was rather civilian in comparison. They were all humans, save for a single drunk dwarf, and an excellent demonstration of how diverse their race was. He didn’t know humans could be so many different colors. One of them was _green_ , and in a hurry to excuse themselves. They stumbled five steps away from the table before hurling everything they’d drunk for the past who-knows-how-long.

“Captain,” Barley called, garnering the attention of everyone at the table. “Got a new recruit for you.”

He jabbed a thumb in Adaar’s direction.

Though most of them had been looking at him already, now every remaining pair of eyes turned on him. He hoped his discomfort at the scrutinizing attention wasn’t noticeable.

One of them scoffed; a red-faced man with a bushy moustache and a thick scar across his nose bridge. Shades of brown, green, and now red.

“A half naked injured qunari,” he said, his voice rough and slightly slurred. “And here I thought you’d never manage to top the last sorry bastard you dragged in.”

“Maybe this one won’t die,” someone quipped, and the company laughed. Adaar failed to see what was so funny. Barley did not laugh, and instead crossed his arms.

“He took six bandits by himself,” he said, and the laughter died down. The red-faced man, presumably Tully, leaned back in his chair.

“Bullshit,” he said, eyes fixing on Adaar. It was too dark to make out what color they were.  
“Saw it with my own eyes,” Barley continued.

Was Barley lying on his behalf? Why? Adaar felt his brows twitch with the urge to frown, but he kept his face straight. Tully was still looking at him. Adaar looked right back.

“Too scared to join the fight, little Ley?” someone else teased and roused some scattered chuckles, though Barley remained unaffected by their jabs.

“I couldn’t. They were all dead by the time we got close.”

To his credit, he did sound very convincing.

Tully pursed his lips to the side, putting his whole moustache off-kilter. There was a moment of silence, the tension in the air near palpable, until he finally grunted and said, “How old are you?”

“Eighteen,” Adaar replied, grateful he’d even bothered to keep track of his age. Some of the mercenaries exchanged glances. While he certainly was not good at telling the age of humans by any means, it was safe to say they were all older than him. Some by a little, some by a lot. Actually, most of them by a lot.

“Andraste’s tits,” Tully exclaimed in monotone, then turned to his company. “Even their blighted pups are giants.”

Adaar scoffed. He was hardly of the stalwart build of the soldiers in the Antaam - he was rather slender in comparison, bred for speed and dexterity rather than strength - but he supposed anyone of his kind would appear giant to a human, or any other race for that matter. He stood a little taller to seem more imposing.

“What’s your name, pup?” he asked next, turning his attention back to Adaar. He supposed _pup_ was better than _ox_.

“Kaas-Adaar.”

Tully stared at him for a long moment, looked him up and down with narrowed eyes. If he decided not to hire Adaar after all, he supposed he’d have to take up work somewhere else. He had few skills beyond his (rather destructive) magic, and what he was taught before it manifested. Outside of Par Vollen, outside the Qun, coin was what kept you alive. Of course, he could try and attempt at the self-sustaining ways of the Dalish, but without an entire clan it would be difficult. His best bet would be mercenary work.

The Qun offered worship to no god, so Adaar had nothing to pray to.

The entire table was silent as they waited for Tully’s verdict and Adaar was pretty sure Barley was holding his breath. After a lifetime Tully exhaled sharply and raised his hand to wave it about in the air, as if dispersing the tense atmosphere.

“Well, Kassadar, consider yourself part of the Blackwater Serpents. We’ll work out your contract tomorrow when I’m not piss fuckin’ drunk.” Adaar didn’t outwardly react to the butchered pronunciation of his name, although it did sound ridiculous. He did, however, give a subtle sigh of relief.

“Barley!” Tully barked sharply, and Barley snapped to attention.

“Sir?”

“Since you’ve already taken him under your wing you might as well take him to get outfitted.”

The respectful subordinate demeanor crumbled instantly as he complained, “And how am I supposed to find something that fits him?”

“Not my problem, kid. Now piss off.”

Barley sighed, then look at Adaar and jerked his head. “Come on.”

They didn’t leave the tavern. Instead, Barley went past the bar with a nod to the bartender and up the stairs to the second floor, Adaar trailing closely behind. The noise from downstairs became distant and muffled, but the smell didn’t improve too drastically.

“The Serpents have been based out of the Bleeding Oak for years,” Barley explained as they went down a narrow, dim corridor. The left wall were all doors, some of which had broken locks, and the right wall had nothing but windows so dirty you could barely see out of them. Adaar wrinkled his nose in distaste. The place was filthy; did no one bother to clean?

“Officially we’re just long-term patrons. _Very_ long-term. Unofficially, Tully bought the whole second floor for the company.”

“Why? It is a...” Adaar searched for the right word. “ _Rupa-Vashedan_. A shithole.”

Barley opened a door near the end of the corridor with a bark of laughter.

“You can say that again,” he said.

“It is a shithole,” Adaar repeated, and Barley laughed again.

The room was even darker than the corridor, but Barley moved to the side and lit a hanging oil lamp. The soft, warm light brightened the room enough to easily navigate it without trouble. It had once been a bedroom, but at some point it had been transformed into an armory. Weapon racks lined one wall, with armor stands along another, and chests and other containers of varying sizes here and there. There was even an empty wooden bed frame in one corner, with more heavy-looking chests sitting atop it.

“Alright, let’s see if I can’t find something that fits you. We had this Avvar woman run with us for a while; lady was huge.” Barley crouched down in front of one of the chests and opened it, revealing it to be full of what Adaar could only guess was clothes. He closed the door behind him, leaned against it, and crossed his arms. They were alone, with no one in earshot.

“Why did you lie to them?” Adaar asked.

Barley shrugged. “I didn’t lie, just embellished the truth a little. World of difference.”

“ _Why_?”

When Barley didn’t immediately reply, he suspected it was because he didn’t even _know_ the reason why. He kept rummaging through the chest, pulling out shirt after shirt and holding them up to evaluate their size. None seemed satisfactory.

“To make sure Tully took you on?” he said after a while. “I guess I just thought you could use people watching your back. Maker knows we’re all assholes, but we look after our own.”

He finally found a shirt that miraculously seemed to be large enough to fit Adaar, and he tossed it to him. The fabric was thick and a bit stiff, but sturdy, and large enough that it wouldn’t come apart should he try to move a bit too fast. He slipped it on. It was rough against his skin, but at least it was a decent fit.

“This part of the world isn’t kind to qunari, even less kind to mages. And shit, you’re both.”

Adaar just watched as Barley closed the chest and opened another one and retrieved a dark tunic next, followed by thick leather armor and a weathered pair of gloves. How did he keep happening upon these people? Complete strangers that just want to help him out, for no particular reason other than out of the goodness of their hearts. First Shiall, then Olivia, and now Barley.

He had been raised to believe the world of bas was corrupt and broken; people living only for themselves, ultimately selfish, aimless and not caring for the success of others. And while he didn’t doubt there was still such things in abundance, they weren’t all like that. There were a few decent ones.

“You’re probably not gonna be fighting in the thick of it, so you can get away with light armor, I think.”

Barley pressed everything he had amassed into Adaar’s arms, then looked up at him with a lopsided smile.

“Welcome to the Serpents, big guy,” he said, giving the items piled in his arms a pat.

“Thank you,” Adaar said and hoped Barley knew he meant more than just the gear. “Where shall I sleep?”

“Just pick a bed and pass out. If we had to argue about which bed belonged to who we’d never get any rest.”

Adaar nodded, and then an awkward silence settled between them. Barley was still smiling, but it turned strained as he stared up at Adaar and he looked increasingly distressed. Adaar thought he must not have met many Tal-Vashoth.

“Well!” he said, voice cracking slightly. He cleared his throat and clapped Adaar on the bicep. “Wanna, uh, join us? For drinks? Downstairs, I mean. Do you drink?”

“Not yet,” Adaar said, because while he had not ever been drunk he would like to try and see what all the fuss was about. There was so much he _could_ try now, after all. “But tonight I think I would rather just retire.”

Barley’s tense smile lingered for a moment, then his entire demeanor deflated in such a peculiar way Adaar could not begin to describe the look on his face, or what it could possibly convey. Humans were extraordinarily expressive.

“Okay,” Barley said. His hand dropped from Adaar’s bicep and he cleared his throat again.. “I’ll be, uh.. Downstairs, if you need me.”

Adaar nodded. “I will find you.”

“Great.”

Barley shifted on his feet, then moved past Adaar to open the door. He paused in the opening, one hand on the doorway and staring at the floor for a moment before he glanced over his shoulder and said, “Good night” and left down the hallway.

Adaar moved to leave, as well, then remembered the oil lamp and put it out before he exit. The very first door he tried opened to a room full of nothing but beds all along either wall, some with heavy backpacks sitting at the foot of them. Those beds, he realized, were occupied by sleeping mercenaries who, like him, had called an early night.

So he followed their example and put all his things at the foot of one of the beds, removed his boots, and abided by Barley’s suggestion of collapsing into it, face down. He lay there with his face buried in the pillow until his lungs ached for air and he had to turn his head to breathe.

He wasn’t tired, yet exhausted at the same time, and everything felt far away. His arms and legs stretched far, far beyond him and through the walls and ever further, but when he looked down at them they were the same length as normal. Yet the feeling persisted. He rolled onto his back and pulled the blankets over him, trying to contain himself, but his body elongated ceaselessly in strange directions and the more he tried to ignore it the more prominent it became.

What was he doing here?

He didn’t feel like himself. He wasn’t even sure what _himself_ actually was. It felt like there was a disconnect between body and soul; his spirit had a different form than his flesh and couldn’t fit properly, and so the name for the body didn’t fit. A few days ago _Kaas-Adaar_ had felt so powerful, fetterless, and now it rung hollow and impersonal. It was like nailing a sign to water.

Impersonal. But a weapon was hardly a person to begin with, was it?

Adaar turned on his side and drew his knees up, wrapping his arms around himself in a white-knuckled hug. _Suffering is a choice, and we can refuse it_ , he thought automatically, then felt his stomach turn at the words. Nothing bound his hands, nothing kept his eyes and lips shut. He was in this bed of his own free will, something he hadn’t had his whole life. Why was he still suffering?

Maybe it wasn’t real. Maybe he was still asleep, half-drowned on a beach near Kirkwall, and demons were spinning an elaborate plot to make him let them in.

Perhaps, he thought. Perhaps running had been a mistake. Perhaps he should’ve followed the Qun into his death, after all. Obeying was easier. Dying was easier. He could not suffer if he was dead. He didn’t want to die, but oh was he tired of suffering.

One of the sleeping mercenaries started snoring, and the noise was so sudden it startled Adaar out of his dark thoughts. He listened to it, to the rasp of someone’s deep breathing; a brother-in-arms, now.  It reminded him of the room he shared with three other children in his youth before everything changed, and listening to them sleep. It reminded him of what it was like to not be alone, and eventually the sound put him to sleep.

 

***

 

Adaar was woken up by someone shaking him by the shoulder. He blinked up at a dark blurry face standing over him, unable to discern any distinguishing features, and for a confused, sleep-hazed moment, he seized up in terror, frost crawling up his arms beneath his shirt.

“Wake up, new blood. Captain wants to see you,” the figure said, and Adaar tried to remember where he was for that to make any sense. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, as if the stimulation would somehow make them work properly. The person who woke him up was the woman from yesterday - Riva? Raina?

“Where is he?” Adaar asked.

“Room nearest the stairs. Better haul ass; he’s not very patient.”

Adaar found the room easily enough and halfway through entering it he realized he had forgotten to knock.

Tully was seated at a table in the middle of the room with his head in his hands. He looked the very image of despair, or perhaps, as was more likely, the very image of a rough hangover. He looked up when the door closed, letting his hands fall to the table with a soft thud. Tully was as red-faced as the previous night, with dark puffy circles under his eyes.

“There you are. Kas-something, was it?” he said.

The first time he got his name wrong had been mildly amusing, now it was just frustrating. Was he so forgettable?

“Adaar.”

“Right.” He got to his feet with a mighty grunt and strode over to a desk by the wall, opening drawer after drawer in search of something. “Barley has vouched for you, and while normally I’d want to see some kinda proof of ability before I make a decision, we’re running short on bodies that won’t complain about their joints when the weather’s foul.”

While Adaar’s joints were all in full working order, he knew for a fact youth did not exempt you from such ailments. He remembered a child in his group had been unable to walk without pain; had to drink an herbal mixture just to keep it manageable, but never gone. Tama probably placed him in the priesthood, where he’d use his mind and not his legs. He didn’t mention this to Tully.

Tully retrieved a rolled-up parchment from a drawer, then turned around and gave him a once-over.

“Where’s your weapon? Unless you mean to tell me you killed six men with that butter knife,” he said and gestured to Shiovera’s dagger at his belt. Adaar didn’t like lying, but he’d rather not expose Barley for telling tall tales on his behalf. Half-truths, then.

“Only one of them fell to this blade,” he said.

If the furrow between Tully’s brows got any deeper it’d start howling like wind blowing in a canyon.

“And the rest?” he demanded.

“They fell to my magic.”

Tully’s stare turned hard. He sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of his nose, then started rubbing his eyebrows.

“Of course you’re a fucking apostate. That Barley and his bleeding heart.”

He shook his head and began pacing back and forth, brows drawn and moustache drooping in a deep frown. Occasionally he’d make a growling humming sound, a hair away from thinking aloud as he weighed the pros and cons in his mind.

Adaar remained silent. He figured that arguing his case wouldn’t put him in good favor with the old man. He seemed the stubborn sort, one that didn’t like you talking back to him, or try to sway him. After all, there had to be a good reason why that Raina woman had called him _iron ass_.

Eventually Tully stopped pacing, turning on his heel and planting his palms on the table. He sighed, then leveled Adaar with another hard stare. Grey eyes, like stone.

“Listen up. No one’s going to sell you out to the Templars, but if you’re stupid about when and where you flail your hands then that’s your own damn fault. We’re not gonna go to war against the entire Order for the sake of one idiot mage. Do I make myself clear?”

Honestly, anything would be a better deal than what he got under the Qun.

“Perfectly clear,” he said.

“Good.”

He unrolled the parchment in his hand, which had gotten slightly crushed from being pressed against the table, and flattened it. He stepped back to the desk and snatched a black feathered quill and inkwell from it.

“Sign your name at the bottom, and you’re in,” Tully said and pushed the parchment, inkwell, and quill over to him. Adaar skimmed through it as best he could with the unfamiliar lettering and rather lazy penmanship - rules of conduct, responsibilities, payment - then grabbed the quill and set it against the line at the bottom and realized he didn’t know how his name was spelled in common. Did it even matter?

Tully eyed him critically, probably noting his hesitation, and Adaar hastily scribbled it down in the runes of Qunlat. Tully snatched the contract back the moment he finished.

“T’fuck kinda chicken scratch is this?” he muttered quietly as he looked it over, then huffed and tossed it onto the desk. “That’s it, pup. You’re officially a Serpent.”

Adaar straightened up and pressed his fist against his chest in a salute, which seemed to please Tully judging from the look on his face, and left the room as a mercenary of the Blackwater Serpents.

 

***

 

Adaar worked for the Serpents for weeks. Then weeks turned into months, months stretched into years.

He started to build something of a reputation among the Serpents. The company was large enough that he didn’t know the name for every face that wore the uniform, but Adaar made for a foreign, intimidating presence thanks to his hailing from Par Vollen, and he stood out; he was easily and quickly recognized. His magic was chaotic and unrefined, but potent and dangerous, and so he made for a formidable adversary to whomever the company was hired to dispose of.

While he did not see the entire world, he did see enough of the Free Marches to become familiar with it. They would follow the Minanter River to Starkhaven, then Ansburg, even as far as to Wycome which was essentially on the far end of the country, then follow the coast to Hercinia and then Ostwick to ultimately return to Tantervale, and the Bleeding Oak. It was almost home.

In Starkhaven he was approached by a Templar, and he wrestled with a thousand possible scenarios before the knight took a deep breath asked him to dinner, blowing them all out of the water. Though he had grown quite aware of the courting process of humans, he declined the offer, just in case, all while the other Serpents were laughing at him some odd feet away. They didn’t let him live it down for a long while.

The look on his face as he stammered “Sorry, I’m busy” had apparently been hilarious.

He never went to Kirkwall. Word was the Arishok was still there, for whatever reason, and Adaar would rather avoid the increased risk of encountering Arvaarad hunting Tal-Vashoth.

They went to a city in Orlais, but they all drank themselves so blindingly stupid on fancy wine that Adaar scarcely recalled a moment of that venture, even less in which city they did such.

Sometimes, on particularly good days when the Serpents had completed a job and everyone was gathered in the Bleeding Oak, laughing and drinking, he could forget about being Tal-Vashoth. He could push the doctrine of the Qun to the furthest reaches of his mind, pretend the scars on his face and on his soul weren’t there, pretend he hadn’t betrayed his motherland and his people because he was unhappy with his supposed place in the world.

But there was no forgetting. Not really. Not when people asked what happened to his horns, not when Barley told him to lay low because “they’ve heard about Qunari in the area”, and not when he woke from dreams of a sad face staring back at him as his eyes were sealed forever.

Those nights when it was too difficult to forget, too close, he stayed awake whilst everyone else slept and cleaned every piece of armor and weaponry he could get his hands on. It made him likeable very quickly, which in turn made him friends as everyone grew accustomed to navigating around him.

Barley was the first one, of course. He was the bastard son of some noble in Starkhaven, who sent him and his mother away to cover it all up so his wife wouldn’t find out. She still lived in Tantervale, and Barley saw her as often as his jobs allowed. Barley asked if Adaar wanted to come along at one point, and at first Adaar thought of accepting, but then all he could think of was Tama’s voice in his dreams and said no.

Through Barley, he befriended Raina, a stalwart woman from Orlais. She came from a family of bakers, who all were rather disappointed in her career choice. They had very little contact, with the exception of a letter every other month or so begging her to put down her sword and come home. Adaar wondered what it was like to have someone want you back, but he didn’t dare ask.

Whenever she received a letter, she’d get this look on her face and throw it away. It wasn’t anger, far from it, and Adaar thought that maybe, in his own way, he understood.

Building relationships with these people, learning about their lives, their families, what brought them to this point - it made it painfully obvious how much Adaar had missed out on, because of the Qun, because of his magic. He was not the sort to envy others - they, too, have had hardships, hardships he couldn’t understand - but it did weigh heavy on his heart to see exactly the extent of what he had been locked away from.

Simple things, such as sitting at a table among friends, playing cards played haphazardly and then forgotten in lieu of stories over drinks. Everyone had put down their hand but no one was looking at the cards’ faces; they might as well not even have been there at all. Adaar would have won that hand.

Raina seated to his left, Barley across from him, along with Tieve, Orno and Flicka and someone he didn’t remember the name of. Everyone had plenty to drink, their faces flushed and smiling, surrounded by the familiar clamor of the Bleeding Oak. Orno, a robust dwarf exiled from Orzammar for one thing or another, he wouldn’t tell anyone, was setting up a joke about an Orlesian Chantry sister, a broken candelabra and a forgotten bucket, but Adaar couldn’t focus on it.

Perhaps it was the ale, but his mind was full and empty all at once. It was like a thick fog had rolled into the tavern, wrapping around everything like a constricting serpent; muting and smothering. Orno’s voice blended with everyone else’s until it became unintelligible, and when he delivered the punchline and the table laughed, Adaar smiled reflexively, uncomprehending.

Raina asked him something, and he replied, but the words exchanged eluded him.

Someone approached their table, and the thought to look at their face to find out who it was didn’t even cross Adaar’s mind. His eyes were fixed on a stain on the table as if hypnotized, drawn into torpor by the gentle buzz at the distant edges of his skin. It was all-encompassing.

“Are you in, Addie?”

Then, suddenly, it was over.

Adaar blinked out of the fog and met Orno’s eye - just the one eye, the other was an empty socket he didn’t as much as bother to hide - and felt embarrassment curl around his throat at having missed, apparently, an entire conversation.

“The job,” Orno clarified. “Fortress bandits causin’ a ruckus.”

“Of course,” Adaar said. “Isn’t it a given?”

Doing jobs, fighting, it gave his mind something to zone in on. In the interludes, the spaces in between, it was much easier to slip into the fog; for something to remind him of something else, or for it to just roll in on its own.

“Maybe this one is when you finally figure out fire,” Flicka said, leaning over and her crooked teeth flashing with her teasing grin.

“Don’t bet on it,” Orno said, likely because he’d once done so himself, and lost a good chunk of money because of it. The will-Adaar-discover-fire betting pool was lucrative for a while, until it just became sad, from both empty pockets and Adaar’s inability to do anything but manifest cold and ice.

“I’ve done perfectly well for myself without fire,” Adaar said. Nevermind those cold, miserable nights in the wilderness when he was just getting his first taste of freedom some odd years ago. Point was, he was still alive.

“So the lot of you, then,” the person who’d approached the table said, crossing their arms with mild disinterest. “The captain himself will be heading the job. Gonna meet outside tomorrow morning, and if you’re late you’ll be left behind.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re very well aware,” Orno dismissed their sour attitude with a wave of his thick, calloused hand. “Acting like we don’t know the rules. Now hurry along and sod off, and leave us to our merriment.”

The mercenary scowled, brows drawn deep, and left with an indignant huff, and Adaar could enjoy an eve of drinking and laughing without the fog clouding his mind again.

 

***

 

In the morning Tully, flushed as always, awaited them outside. As Adaar’s sight had slowly improved, he was able to make out faint red veins crawling like spider webs over his cheeks, and wisps of grey in his dark moustache. The change had been so gradual Adaar hadn’t noticed it at first, but one day he realized he could make out the detail in people’s faces - a mole beneath Barley’s eye, the dimples in Raina’s cheeks when she smiled, the engravings on the golden beads in Orno’s beard - and he didn’t get headaches anymore.

With a sad sort of reminiscing, he wondered what minute details he’d been unable to notice in Shiall and Shiovera’s faces. He barely remembered what their _vallaslin_ looked like. Absently, he reached towards his neck, around which a leather string hung with a wooden pendant in the shape of an owl. He touched it, felt the points of its feathery ears, then curled his fingers around it.

 _Please let clan Sulahn be well_ , he thought, and wondered if Shiall had been made Keeper yet.

 

One by one, the crowd of mercenaries grew in number and size, shifting and murmuring amongst themselves under Tully’s wordless, steel-eyed gaze.

It was a chilly morning, cold enough that their breaths came out in faint clouds, a promise for the turbulent temperament of fall; miserably cold mornings followed by unbearingly hot afternoons, making dressing for the weather nigh impossible. Adaar, painfully unaccustomed to the south as he still was, shivered helplessly in his boots, and wished for nothing more than that they would get going already, so that his body might warm itself through activity.

Eventually, finally, Tully began addressing the assembly. He explained, in his own rough-handed terms and crude mannerisms, a local noble and self-titled trade prince had commissioned the Serpents to take care of a troublesome clan of bandits which have been disrupting his trade routes, raiding his caravans and slaughtering the merchants in his employ.

But as he explained, he trailed off, eyes catching on something past the company. Adaar turned his head, as did several others, to see a short buxom woman with straw-colored hair pulled atop her head in a messy bun hurry by, her skirt hoisted up in her hands. She threw herself in Tully’s arms, who embraced her sheepishly.

“Nina, what are you doing here?” he asked, uncharacteristically stunned.

“I wanted to see you off,” Nina said as she pulled away, taking his hands in her much smaller ones. “You never come say goodbye, you big oaf.”

Tully’s hands settled at her broad hips, looking positively dumbstruck and completely at a loss for words.

“Nina, please-”

“You best come back to me whole, Billy,” she said fiercely. “I’ll never forgive you if you go and die.”

As she kissed him on the cheek, a good amount of shit-eating grins bloomed on the faces of his mercenaries.

“Oh, don’t worry, Nina. We’ll get your man home safe and sound,” Raina said with a warm and understanding voice, and Adaar had to sink his teeth into his bottom lip to stop from laughing out loud when she followed it up sweetly with, “Isn’t that right, _Billy_?”

Tully’s permanently red face somehow grew even redder, giving him a likeness to a boiled lobster.

Nina just smiled gratefully at Raina.

“I know you will,” she said, then gave Tully’s hands one last squeeze while staring longingly into his eyes before leaving. It probably would have been a sweet, tender moment if it weren’t for the fact that all of Tully’s mercenaries were witnessing the softness in his heart.

The moment she was gone, the entire company started howling, accompanied by croons of “ _Billy!_ ” and sharp whistles.

“Shut your mouths, all of you! Or I’m docking your pay _indefinitely_ ,” he snapped in true _Iron Ass_ fashion, which promptly shut everyone up, even if they were biting their cheeks to keep from snickering.

But with the interruption over and gone, the Blackwater Serpents gathered their bearings and left through the northern gates of Tantervale. Finally on the move, the cold was less imposing, which was rather ironic considering Adaar’s affinity for ice magic - he disliked the cold, preferring the heat and humidity of Par Vollen if only because he was used to it, yet it was all he could summon from the Fade.

Distantly, he suddenly remembered someone (Tama?) telling him cold was not a force such as heat, but rather the absence of it - just as darkness was merely the absence of light - and he began to wonder how that would even begin to make sense in terms of magic. He could easily make ice spring from his palms, but ice was solid water.

Maybe, he thought, he did not summon cold from the Fade, but rather sent the warmth to it, pulling it out of this realm and past the Veil. Water was everywhere, inside people, on their skin, in plants and in the air. Without a thought, without even really understanding how, he’d been directing warmth away so precisely that the water would freeze.

Adaar was at once elated and mortified at this revelation. Keeper Elethenar had never delved too deeply into the precise logistics of magic; only how to control it, how to direct his mind to temper it to his will. His brief lessons had only been how to do it, not what he was doing. Adaar supposed Elethenar had deemed it unnecessary. Adaar’s magic was largely instinctual, and so the Keeper might have concluded that applying schooling and nitpicks on a self-taught foundation would be counter-productive, or take too much time.

 

Fingers snapped in front of him, and he reared back. He followed the arm which the fingers belonged to and saw Raina, who stood with a hand on her hip and the other dropping to her side.

“Are we present?” she asked. Adaar thought to himself, metaphorically turning his eyes inward. There was no buzz in his hands, and he could feel his own weight in his feet; a distinct awareness of himself that was dull and sharp all at once - a second thought, but a thought nonetheless. His mind had merely been wandering along with his feet.

“Yes,” he said truthfully. He looked around and it seemed the company had stopped for a moment, Tully wandering around and organizing scouting parties.

“Good. You’ve been spacier than usual lately. Everything alright?”

Adaar merely shrugged. “I’m fine,” he said.

“So you say. As long as you can fight properly, it’s not a problem.” Raina paused, her plump lips drawn into a frown. “But I worry about you.”

“I told you, I’m fine,” he repeated, touched by the concern but finding it wholly unnecessary all the same, and disconcerting, somehow. He didn’t like to be seen as weak, and a perpetually clouded mind could easily be perceived as weakness.

“I know, I know, you don’t like talking about your shit, and you don’t have to tell anyone every horrible thing that’s happened to you.”

Adaar looked at her, not realizing he had looked away in the first place, and her dark eyes were like an anchor and their firm sincerity. She reached out and pressed her hand against his bicep.

“But.. Talk to Barley. Unload for once. He’s got a lot more sensitivity than I do.”

Adaar scoffed. “You just said I didn’t have to talk.”

“I know what I said. But, just consider it? You have the option. You have friends, Addie.”

He hated that he needed to be reaffirmed in such a way. Hated that it was so easy for his mind to close itself off to the outside and enshroud him in thick wool that at once protected and isolated him, rendered him unseeing and unhearing and unfeeling despite having all his senses at his disposal. It was like he never left at all; he’d become his own Arvaarad.

“I wouldn’t know what to say.” Raina opened her mouth with an inhale, but-

“Soldiers ahead!” someone up front suddenly called, promptly ending their discussion.

Adaar and Raina hurried over to the sentry and immediately spotted them. There were five of them, all dressed in silver-and-blue armor and steadily approaching. As they came closer Adaar could make out a winged crest engraved on their chest plates.

“Grey Wardens,” Raina said next to him just as Tully shouldered past them and took position in front of them, looking like a human thundercloud.

One of the Wardens stepped forward; a handsome man with dark mousy hair and a carefully groomed beard topped by an impeccable moustache. He had a black tattoo on his left cheek, though its significance was lost on Adaar.

The Warden gave a pleasant smile, “Greetings! We are-”

“If you’re looking to recruit, you can look elsewhere,” Tully said, interrupting him before he could as much as state his intent, arms crossed and oozing hostility. “I need these men.”

The Warden seemed taken aback, his smile vanishing instantly, but he swiftly recovered. “As a matter of fact, we’re not looking to recruit. We’re-”

“I know you,” another Warden interjected suddenly; a young man with short black hair, couldn’t be older than Adaar. “You’re Iron Ass. We’re not seriously gonna ask the Blackwater Serpents to help us?”

“ _Thank you_ for your input, Carver,” the first Warden said, not sounding grateful at all. “Now, if everyone would be so kind as to stop interrupting me.”

There was a pregnant pause as everyone just looked at each other.

The Warden shook his head. “No bloody manners, you lot. What was I saying?”

“You were gonna ask us for help?” Tully said, though his voice was ripe with disbelief.

“Ah, right.” He cleared his throat. “There’s an old warden fortress in the area which has recently been occupied by bandits. We need it cleared out, and asking the locals for aid is much faster than sending for reinforcements.”

Tully ran his pointer and thumb along his moustache with a disinterested frown.

“Normally I’d just tell you to either cough up an offer or piss off, but as it stands we’re already hunting bandits on behalf of some noble prig,” he said. “Tell you what. You’re free to add your swords to ours, but you’re not getting a cut of the job.”

The first Warden cut off the indignant protest of the youngest nary a syllable into the sentence with a raise of the hand.

“That’s fine,” he said. “We will join you. We’ll even make your job easier; we’ve scouted the area, and have maps which mark their outposts around the fortress.”

Tully grunted, then jerked his head over his shoulder, towards Adaar.

“Give them to Adaar. Don’t bother anyone else.”

And with that, Tully left, stomping back to the rest of the company.

The Warden stared after him, his face an intriguing mixture of appalled and flabbergasted, before shaking himself and turning his attention to Adaar. He approached him warily. Whether he thought he’d snap at him like Tully did, or just didn’t trust him because of how he looked, he didn’t know. Perhaps both.

“Adaar, was it? You’re the navigator?”

“Something like that.”

“Good enough, I guess. I’m Kilian Ardwell, by the way, since your captain didn’t care to ask.”

Adaar scoffed. “Such is his way. You said you have maps?”

Kilian nodded, and with one last reproachful glance in Tully’s general direction he produced several maps rolled up around each other. Adaar took them wordlessly and looked them over. The fortress was clearly recognizable - it was part of the original drawing - and around it at varying distances away from it were outposts hastily marked with charcoal.

“The locations are, well, approximations, let’s say,” Kilian said. “At least some of them are. One we know for certain; almost stumbled right into it.”

There was one near to where they were, perhaps an hour or so into the hills.

“Then can you _approximate_ how large these outposts are? What are their numbers like?”

Kilian exhaled through his mouth. “Maybe twenty or so men to a camp? We didn’t exactly sit and count all of them.”

“That’s why I asked for the approximate. Here,” he added and handed him the maps back. Kilian seemed surprised at getting them back.

“Don’t you need them?” he asked.

“I have them memorized. I’ll go over a plan of approach with Tully, and you should probably join our discussion.”

Kilian gave a low whistle, then put away the maps and gave him a searching look, then said, “You know, you’re not like other qunari I’ve met.”

“I’m not Qunari,” Adaar said. “I’m Tal-Vashoth.”

“Oh. My mistake.” Kilian scrubbed absently at his beard. “That’s the rebels, right?”

He didn’t really want to talk about this. It would inevitably steer into the Qun, and what it was like, and why he left it, the dissonance between him and ‘his people’, that he was at once part of and not part of.

Adaar sighed. “It’s not so simple as rebelling.”

“You’ll have to forgive my ignorance. Us southerners don’t encounter qunari that often. Er, I mean Tal-Vashoth,” Kilian added. “I’ve known you for five minutes and you’ve already said more than twice the amount of words all the qunari I’ve previously met have combined.”

Adaar chuckled, unsurprised. “Are you keeping track?”

Kilian shrugged with a slight smile. “Approximation.”

”Many Qunari do not speak common well, and if they do they speak shortly as they see no point in dallying about, or they just don’t like _bas_. As for short-spoken Tal-Vashoth... Suppose they choose to conform to societal expectations.”

Kilian’s blue eyes glimmered as brightly as his smile. “Well, I’m glad to have met one who subverts them. A lot less stressful to hold a conversation that way.”

They exchanged a chuckle, and Adaar felt a pang of distaste towards his captain for being so unnecessarily rude to such a pleasant man.

Tully was only scarcely more courteous when they discussed the outposts, mostly ignoring Kilian unless he had no choice but to address him. Eventually they conceded to splitting the company in half and systematically fanning out to take out the outposts surrounding the fortress. Tully would lead one troop.

“I want you heading the other one, Adaar,” Tully said. “Raina will be your second, and take the Wardens with you.”

Pride swelled in Adaar’s chest, along with a great desire to do right by Tully’s decision to trust in his ability to lead. He couldn’t afford to be nervous, that’d just be practically inviting the fog in. He had to be sure of himself. He had to do this right.

The small squad of Wardens were mostly frontline fighters, though Kilian boasted a versatile fighting style with his dual wielding. They formulated a plan that would have Adaar directing a group into a head-on assault, with Raina at the front seeing as he was of little use in a melee fight, while Kilian and his Wardens utilized the commotion to flank the bandits and leave them hard pressed from all sides.

As they neared the outpost, Adaar gave the order to spread out and move slowly as to not make any noise, or cause too much movement in the brush.

The camp seemed to spring up out of nowhere. There was no convenient clearing which the bandits had occupied, but merely decided this unpeculiar spot in the woods was a good a spot as any. Adaar stopped, Raina crouched low abreast of him, and he was glad the years had improved his eyes as he could see the wardens slowly circling around; the evening sun filtering through the canopy occasionally reflecting off of their silver armor.

“How many do you think?” Raina whispered.

“Less than us,” Adaar replied. “Might be some in the tents, be prepared for that.”

The bandits moved about, unaware of the many eyes upon them. Adaar flexed his fingers, inhaling deeply. The temperature around his hands dropped, sending a chill up his arms as he directed heat into the Fade.

“Be ready,” he whispered and Raina wordlessly unsheathed her sword. She raised her fist, and it really was the quiet of the storm. Frost crawled up his forearms and tension rippled through the woods, all the while the bandits were completely oblivious.

Time seemed to slow. His breath was coming out in puffs of steam. His heartbeat was roaring in his ears.

“Now.”

Raina gave the signal, and the Serpents spilled out of the bushes like a furious river breaking the dam. Adaar rose to his full height, swinging his arms upwards in a wide arc as two walls of ice rose on either side of the camp, trapping the bandits in a hallway of frozen water. From one end came the Serpents, and the Wardens from the other. The bandits quickly realized they were cornered.

The few archers Adaar had at his disposal lined up in front of him, nocked their arrows, and sent a fairly decent barrage hailing down on top of the startled bandits. An unfortunate few collapsed, and the others scarcely had time to arm themselves before the melee Serpents reached them.

Orno gave his maul an underhand swing and crushed the jaw of an unfortunate bandit. Flicka was a whirlwind of daggers, weaving in and out of the chaos like a dancer. Adaar angled himself sideways, one arm stretched out behind him and the other pointed towards the battle. With a steadying breath, he drew water from the Fade and then froze it, forming razor sharp icicles floating in a menacing halo behind him. Concentration was key; each icicle he sent hurling would have to be carefully timed, or they’d end up with some devastating friendly fire.

Exhale. One shard hissed through the air, and a woman screeched when her eye was penetrated by ice and stopped abruptly when it sank too deep. Not his intention, but it got the job done.

Inhale. A bandit was trying to sneak up on Orno to plunge their dagger into his back.

Exhale. Adaar plunged a shard of ice into _their_ back instead, hitting them square in the spine. Their legs immediately gave out under them.

Inhale. He could see the wardens; Kilian fought with a style that was at once defensive and offensive, Carver wielding a ridiculously large greatsword and, appropriately, carving through bandits. Barley was among them, and had lost his shield at some point, trying to dislodge his sword from someone’s shoulder.

The bandits were thinning out rapidly, caught by surprise and outnumbered, and soon enough the ones that hadn’t managed to slip away in the chaos were scattered about the camp, either dead or dying.

As the dust both figuratively and literally settled, Adaar let the remaining icicles drop to the ground and looked around at the carnage. The ground was littered with the still warm bodies of fallen men and women, and, from what Adaar could tell, were all bandits.

“Casualties?” he called, watching his company get their bearings, stepping over fresh corpses and helping themselves to their pockets.

“None!” came Raina’s answer after a brief pause. “Few wounded, nothing serious.”

He sighed a breath of relief, and he caught Kilian’s eye across the camp who gave him a curt nod, which he wasn’t entirely sure how to interpret.

“Alright, you vultures!” he called next. “We’re regrouping. There’s two more outposts to go and we don’t have time to waste!”

Pilfering sorted, the company sloppily dismantled the camp (which was little more than hacking up tents) and moved on in an albeit loose formation. Adaar had gotten more than his fill of uniform marching in the Qun, and he didn’t see why a ragtag band of mercenaries should act like disciplined soldiers.

The next camp was a couple hours northwest, and if Tully and his company had taken care of their camp in the same manner as them they should be moving on to the next one as well, and once those two were dealt with they would head back east as Tully turned west and meet in the middle, and then it was a straight shot south towards the fort.

After a while, Barley came up at Adaar’s side - not quite jogging to catch up with his long strides, but very close to it - and gave him a hearty slap on the back.

“Nice job back there. You make for a good captain, Addie,” he said with a beaming smile. “Maybe this’ll finally get you promoted.”

Adaar smiled, a crooked thing. “Thank you, but I don’t much care for promotion.”

“Yeah, but still. You deserve it.”

Not entirely sure how one would _deserve_ a promotion, as opposed to _earn_ it, Adaar didn’t reply. In the Qun you were promoted because you suited the role, and you were expected to do the job well. A soldier was made a commander because he had displayed an ability to strategize and lead beyond taking orders. A commander was made general because he had the ability to command entire legions. A general was made Arishok because he could make decisions.

“How’re you holding up?” Barley asked.

“People keep asking me that,” Adaar said wryly with a slight, _very_ slight edge to his voice. “Wonder why that is.”

“Because we care, you doofus. And you can be kinda... well..”

“Distracted?” Adaar supplied.

Barley shrugged. “Something like that. Get this look in your eye like you’re somewhere else entirely.”

“Perhaps I’m in the Fade.”

“I may not be a mage, Addie, but I’m not an idiot.” When Adaar gave him a sideways look paired with a slight smirk, Barley added, “At least not that big of one. I’ve known you for years now, I know what you look like when you’re in the Fade, and it isn’t that.”

There was a beat of silence, and Adaar nearly thought that was the end of their banter when Barley spoke up again.

  
“I’ve seen it before, you know. Lots of Fereldans came up here to escape the darkspawn; refugees, veterans of the Blight. Hell, escaped slaves from Tevinter, too.”

Adaar could feel Barley’s eyes on him, but the conversation was steering far too close to home for him to be able to meet them. It wasn’t frightening, but it was powerful in some manner. Overwhelming in a way he couldn’t possibly explain.

“The mind doesn’t shut off like that unless it’s been put through something horrible, or taken _a lot_ of lyrium, and you’re a mage so that wouldn’t affect you.”

Adaar only just noticed his fists were clenched.

“I was Saarebas. That’s all there is to know,” he said over the lump in his throat.

He jolted when Barley touched his arm.

“Sorry,” they said in unison, and Adaar finally looked at him. Barley’s face looked so sad, and even if his eyes were green and not dark he could imagine him asking him to close his eyes a little too vividly.

“They sewed my eyes shut,” he blurted. Barley nearly stumbled over his own boots.

“They _what_?” he hissed with the shock of a farmer who just discovered his daughter doing something uncouth with the neighbor’s scraggly son in the barn.

“Usually they only sew the mouth shut, but I tried to run away. They didn’t want to risk it.”

“Maker’s Breath.. I-” Barley seemed at a loss for words. “‘Sorry’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

“I don’t like to talk about it,” Adaar said.

“I can understand that, and you don’t have to,” Barley assured, just like Raina did, then paused to search for words once more. “I guess what I really wanted to say is.. We see you got baggage, and we got your back, yeah?”

Adaar nodded, not trusting his voice to carry properly, and Barley gave him a hearty slap on the back before falling back, presumably to give him his space, but not so far that he abandoned him completely.

The consideration made his chest ache.

Another bandit outpost was dealt with, Flicka lost a finger, and after an hour or so of resting in the remnants of their camp dealing with that situation Adaar’s troop carried on towards the rendezvous point where they would meet back up with Tully and the rest of the company.

Tully’s band were already setting up camp when they arrived.

When the lookout demanded to know why they were delayed, Flicka just waved her freshly bandaged four-fingered hand with a big grin.

Some stripped themselves of their armor (to clean, for comfort, or both), and some elected to keep it on, and some ended up in-between. Adaar was among those who kept it on. Mostly because it was light and didn’t impair his comfort all that much, but also because it made him feel safer.

He had tried to approach Tully about a plan of attack, but Iron Ass had unceremoniously told him _“Piss off, pup, I want to sleep. Save the planning for dawn.”_ so he just sat down in front of one of many campfires and all but twiddled his thumbs.

After a while, Kilian and another Grey Warden joined him at the fire, chatting back and forth. Adaar quelled the urge to listen in to their conversation and settled for drowning out the world by staring into the flames. Eventually, he noticed he couldn’t hear the buzz of conversation anymore and looked up to find Kilian was sitting by himself and digging through his pack.

With the softest victorious exclamation, Kilian retrieved a deep maroon cloth that was tied with silver string. Undoing the bundle, it revealed to contain small, perfectly cut brown blocks. Adaar could not contain his curiosity any longer.

“What is that?” he asked. Kilian blinked up at him, then down at the little brown blocks in his hand. He stretched his hand out towards him and offered them to Adaar.

“It’s chocolate,” he said, a slight smile curling his moustache. “Milk chocolate, from Tevinter. You’ve never tried it?”

Adaar looked at the chocolate in his outstretched hand, then with a glance at Kilian’s blue, earnest eyes, he picked up a piece and plopped it into his mouth. For a brief second, he didn’t taste anything, but then the little block started to melt on his tongue. It was very sweet, in a smooth and mild way, and creamy, neither hot nor cold. It tasted like what fine silks looked like. It tasted like falling into particularly pleasant dream, pillowed by golden clouds. It tasted like floating in a still river with the sweet scent of flowers in the air.

Kilian chuckled, his smile grew even wider. “By the look on your face, I assume you like it. You can have some more, if you want.” His outstretched hand nudged Adaar’s chest; an invitation.

Adaar stared at his open expression, and that easy smile that made his chest flutter in odd ways. When he didn’t immediately help himself to another piece, Kilian nudged him again with a lift of the brows like a silent _go on._

“Thank you,” Adaar said, a little helplessly, and ate another piece.

Satisfied, Kilian sat back and ate a piece of chocolate himself.

Tomorrow, they would take the fort. Adaar hoped Kilian would survive the battle unscathed.

 

***

 

Adaar was by no means any sort of historian.

Qunandar had been, as far as he could tell, old. Exactly how old, he didn’t know - architecture and all its trapping flew over his head. His people had arrived in Thedas several ages ago and where they came from was never named, described, or talked about. What he could remember of the buildings of Par Vollen was that some of them were old enough that they had to be torn down and rebuilt for better structural integrity; re-imaged with new ideas, new strategies, more efficiency.

The fortress the bandits had chosen to squat in seemed much older than anything Adaar had ever seen before. The stone was worn, moss-grown in places, crumbling in others, weathered by time and who knows what else. He saw no heraldry, though it was easy to see where banners would be hung should the need or desire arise.

The ancient structure didn’t even have a front gate.

The Serpents were scattered around the front of it, hidden among foliage and the darkness of pre-dawn. Adaar’s troop would be the main force; they would attack first, and then Tully would bring the rest in a second wave. It was a strategy intended to demoralize the enemy. Raina was looking at him, about 10 feet away to his left. Adaar, in turn, was looking back at Tully some paces back, who was staring at the fort.

Birds began to sing merrily, and Tully looked at Adaar. He nodded, and in a daisy chain of signals the attack was launched. There was no battle cry, only the rustling of leaves and the thumping of boots against the earth as dozens of mercenaries advanced on the keep.

As they flooded through the open gate, Adaar closed his eyes and drew upon the Fade, detaching himself from this side of the Veil and traversing over. Within the Fade, there were no limitations on what he could or couldn’t do; his speed increased tenfold, and he was running towards the wall of the fortress like rushing water. The keep was still there, with so many souls gathered in and around it, and the burgeoning battle was drawing the attention of nearby spirits.

Even so, everything in the Fade was merely an idea, and an idea you could easily manipulate to suit yourself. He scaled the wall in a single leap and pulled himself away from the Fade, barging back through the Veil again. His target, the sentry, was to his left and gaping wordlessly at the qunari that had just materialized in front of him.

Adaar seized his head and wrung his neck before he could think to blow his horn and sound the alarm.

The initial surprise attack was so devastatingly successful Tully’s force hardly had the chance to arrive before the courtyard was conquered. While a good chunk of the Serpents continued further into the Keep, some remained behind to make sure no one escaped, or there weren’t any hidden reinforcements somewhere, Adaar among them as the only mage.

 

Even as people were still getting their bearings, Adaar felt someone touch his arm.

“Come with me,” Kilian said, already walking away towards a side passage. Adaar followed mostly out of curiousity, but still couldn’t help but ask: “Why me?”

“Because the other wardens joined the attack force, and you’re the only Serpent I trust.” Kilian kept looking at the sconces on either side of them as they progressed down a winding hallway. “Didn’t want to draw attention to what I’m up to, and I’d rather not wander around on my own,” he said.

Adaar wondered what he could possibly be up to that he didn’t want the Serpents in on. All he knew of the Grey Wardens was that their order was ancient, and they were the only ones that could end a Blight.

“It’s getting awfully dark in here,” Kilian said, and it was indeed rather dark. Adaar wasn’t too troubled; he preferred the darkness, but he could understand how someone who didn’t have all manner of visual problems would prefer a well lit hallway.

“I don’t see any torches,” Adaar remarked, looking at the continuously empty sconces on the walls.

“Can’t you just… magic some fire?” Kilian asked, wiggling his fingers for emphasis. Adaar frowned at the sconces. The honest answer was no, he couldn’t, but that wasn’t something he’d readily admit to someone he… admired? Did he admire Kilian?

He raised his hands, focusing his entire mind and soul on lapping hot flames, scorching and wild, and reached into the Fade. He prayed to the, Maker, or Elgar’nan, or whomever. _Please_ , he thought, _let it work_. A hot glimmer appeared between his palms, and for a brilliant, fantastic moment Adaar thought he’d finally done it when his tiny little flame fizzled out in smoke.

The disappointment was crushing.

“Oh,” Kilian said after a moment. “Guess you’ve been casting too many ice spells recently. We’ll just have to make do with darkness.”

They continued down the hall, which in turn became stairs leading down, down and finally opened to a massive library. Impossibly tall stone bookshelves lined the walls, tall enough to reach the ceiling, filled with ancient books. Wooden bookshelves that weren’t quite as tall but still obscenely huge divided the library into sections. Various containers such as drawers, desks and chests were all over the place, some overturned, some upright.

Kilian stroked his moustache, then headed into the library. Adaar followed him closely, amazed that this enormous archive had just been left there, forgotten.

“What are we looking for?” Adaar asked, squinting at the spines of the books whilst Kilian opened container after container. He opened a chest bigger than he was and all but dove into it and began shuffling through books, scrolls and various parchments.

“Grey Warden scrolls. Not extremely sure what’s written on them, but I have a vague idea,” Kilian replied. The shuffling stopped for a moment, followed by a loud sneeze that stirred up a huge cloud of dust, and then continued.

Adaar figured just standing there was useless and unproductive, so he began to dig through chests as well. Just as he opened a chest small enough to easily be carried, they heard footsteps from the stairs, and a light began to illuminate the library.

“It’s a library, sir,” said a voice, and Adaar heard Tully snap, “I can see that.”

“Oh great,” Kilian murmured some feet away from him.

“These scrolls carry the same crest as your armor,” Adaar said, holding a scroll up to inspect it. Kilian immediately got to his feet and came over.

“Let me see.”

Adaar stood up, lifting the chest and holding it up for Kilian to inspect. What began as mild hope bloomed into full blown excitement across his entire face. He clutched the scrolls in his hands, looking at Adaar with wide eyes and a beaming grin.

“This is it!” he exclaimed, then laughed triumphantly, throwing his head back. “You’re brilliant, Adaar! Oh, this makes this entire ordeal worth it. Thank the Maker.”

“What’s all this ruckus?” Just then Tully had rounded around a bookcase, along with a mercenary carrying a torch.

Kilian stuffed the scrolls he were holding back into the chest and closed the lid.

“Warden business; nothing you need to concern yourself with.”

Tully pointed at Adaar. “That’s a Serpent you’re reveling with, and that makes it my concern.”

“He was looking for some scrolls. I aided him,” Adaar explained, indicating the chest.

“So you found them?” Tully jerked his head, and the mercenary moved forward and took the chest out of Adaar’s arms. Or attempted to, as he held on.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Adaar, please,” the mercenary sighed.

“You found them, that makes them Serpent property, and since I happen to be the illustrious leader of this fine organization, I decide what happens to them,” Tully said and crossed his arms. “Now be a good pup and hand them over.”

“How dare you!?” Kilian exclaimed. “You don’t even need those blighted scrolls!”

The mercenary continued to try and tug the chest out off Adaar’s arms, who refused to give it up.

“You have no right to them,” Adaar growled.

“Andraste’s flaming tits,” Tully muttered and stomped over. He shoved the mercenary out of the way and then physically yanked the chest out of Adaar’s arms, and was a whole lot more successful in the endeavor.

Adaar swore and made a grab for the chest, frost sparking from his fingertips, but Tully drew his sword and pointed it at Adaar’s throat, stopping him dead in his tracks.

“Fall in line, Adaar!” Tully barked furiously, the chest clutched under one arm.

“You’ll do well to remember who you work for, spellchucker.”

Adaar narrowed his eyes, blood running cold. He could recognize a threat when he heard one, especially with the tip of a sword pressed against his trachea, and he was both infuriated and baffled that Tully would resort to such tactics when pitting loyalty against morals didn’t work in his favor. Surely he wouldn’t actually turn him in to the Templars?

When Adaar didn’t move nor speak, Tully let his sword drop.

Kilian was still fuming. “ _Iron Ass_ , indeed. Us wardens helped in the battle, by the Maker! We have as much right to them as your blighted Serpents. No offense, Adaar,” he added in an aside.

“Oh yes, all five of you. Your blades hardly made a difference, bub, and I recall clearly stating you lot would not get a cut out of the job,” Tully said, shoving the chest into the arms of the other mercenary, who simply stood there, dumbfounded, until Tully jerked his head with a glare and they scurried off. “The scrolls belong to the Serpents. If you want them, you’ll just have to hark up some gold, and I imagine they’re quite valuable.”

“This is extortion!” Kilian exclaimed furiously. “Those scrolls belong to the Wardens!”

“You can’t do this,” Adaar said.

Tully leveled him with a cold glare.

“Watch me,” he said, turned, and left.

 

***

 

The Wardens had quickly packed up and left after that, glaring bloody murder at whomever was within sight. The young one, Carver, was especially talented. It made an already sour morning even worse, as Adaar didn’t get the chance to bid Kilian farewell.

The Blackwater Serpents, as always, returned to the Bleeding Oak brimming with ambivalence. The celebratory drinks went on as usual, but some were half-hearted in their participating.

Had Adaar been less collected of a man, he would have stormed into Tully’s room, slamming the door open, yelling furiously, but his pace was calm yet brisk. He entered the room with long, even strides and wordlessly dropped a yellowed parchment onto the table with a grim expression.

Tully, with his feet up, looked at it with a plain, almost bored expression. He looked up at Adaar and grunted, “And what’s this?”

“My resignation,” Adaar said and crossed his arms. Tully scoffed, unmoving from his leisurely pose.

“You’re shitting me,” he said in a deadpan.

“I couldn’t be more serious.”

Tully stared at him for a moment longer, as if trying to discern if he was truly being honest, before his feet dropped to the floor with a thud and he snatched up the letter. His perpetual frown deepened as he skimmed it, and he scoffed once more.

“So this is it, then? You’re pissing off?”

“Yes.”

Another impossibly heavy silence befell them, and perhaps Tully was considering trying to change his mind, and get him to stay. Perhaps Tully was considering demanding a reason, though he could likely take a guess as to why. Perhaps Tully was considering telling him he was a slack-wit, or something similarly insulting. Tully did none of these things. Instead, he dropped the letter, shrugged, and gestured lazily with his hand.

“Go on, then. Make your own fortune, or whatever.”

Adaar just barely heard Tully tell him anything he left behind would be sold as the door closed behind him, and he was just about to head upstairs to gather his things when he noticed someone standing in front of him, blocking his path.

Barley, wide-eyed, eyebrows tilted upwards and creasing his forehead, looking an awful lot like a devastated puppy.

“You’re leaving,” he said, but it wasn’t accusing. It sounded like defeat, like he knew it was going to happen eventually.

“I am,” he confirmed. “I won’t serve under a captain who would have me forsake what’s right for gold.”

Adaar had not become the sort of man to see the right choice in front of him and then pick something else for his own gain. The Qun had raised him to think of the people first, even if it had betrayed him with its own blind denial of the right thing.

“I’ve already lost too much of my life to someone else’s skewed morality.”

“I know that, and I’m not going to stop you, I just… I don’t know what I want to do, or say,” Barley said with a heavy sigh. He stepped forward, restlessly flexing his hands. “You’re one of us, Addie. If you fuck off we might never see you again. I might never see you again.”

“You could come with me,” Adaar suggested, then immediately regretted it when he saw the expression on Barley’s face. He was asking him to tear himself in two.

“I’d love to, Addie. You know I would, it’s just…” His eyes averted, and he scratched the back of his neck with a frustrated sigh.

“Your mother is here,” Adaar said, understanding. “And your friends.”

“They’re your friends, too!” Barley stepped forward, grabbing Adaar by his biceps, his upset evident on his face.

Adaar shook his head, then slowly closed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around Barley in an embrace. The human was all but engulfed in his arms for how much smaller he was. He couldn’t remember the last time he hugged someone.

(Was it Shiall? Shiovera? Was it Tama, all those years ago?)

Muffled against his chest, Barley said, “I can’t believe this. You’re finally gonna open up and then piss off the very next day?”

Adaar chuckled, snorting when Barley’s scraggly hair tickled his nose. “It wasn’t how I planned it.”

“It better not because that’s right shit planning.” Barley boxed him awkwardly on the back. “Don’t leave. Tully’s a right prick, but you don’t have to leave all of us behind because of him.”

But leaving was about more than just Tully. Things he couldn’t put to words, or even identify what they were. As much as he loved his friends, he felt in his heart that he didn’t belong among the Blackwater Serpents, not truly. Somehow he knew this wasn’t his place.

“Leaving things behind is all I know,” he said softly, for it was all that he could say with certainty, then let go of Barley and headed upstairs to pack without looking back. Barley didn’t stop him.

His chest felt tight, and his eyes dangerously wet. He hadn’t said farewell to Raina, or Orno, or any of the others. He didn’t know where they were, and in all honestly he didn’t want to stay in Tantervale any longer than necessary. But at least Barley, the hand which invited him into the Serpents in the first place, could be the one to see him off.

Another goodbye, another handful of faces he might never see again.

Adaar wrapped his fingers around the wooden owl hanging from his neck and, despite everything, he found he didn’t feel lonely at all, and smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no beta we die like men
> 
> well that was a bit of an angst-fest! and also really atrociously fucking long, and i’m still trying (and failing) to keep this like.. Brief to not only go easy on myself but also so it doesn’t become a Monster of a fic and also oh my god how many times do i have to write adaar introducing himself this is Obscene
> 
> Anyway for the next and final chapter i was undecided abt how to go about a Certain Thing so i pretty much flipped a coin and i honestly can’t wait to see ppls reaction to the result. It’s gonna be a big sloppy serving of comedy, and then Thing.


	6. Kadan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I DID IT. and it didn’t take five months this time. we’ve arrived at the end of the road, at last. For the readers who have not rolled a qunari quizzy: all the Valo-Kas names are canon. Are you ready for qunari content? Because there’s gonna be A Lot of it.
> 
> We are at the “Modern Jesus” part of the [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/garbageboi/playlist/42kp3rGkTrwsRpEnvlcd9M?si=tiq0ly9aRoKVURt8632BYg), for those who’d like to keep track.
> 
> A huge thank you to everyone who’s stuck around and followed this story from the beginning, and a separate but no less huge thank you for those who joined along the way, or even showed up right here at the end!
> 
> Your comments and kudos are what’s kept my motivation alive. Thank you all so, so much
> 
>  **Content warning:** violence, as usual, and character death

__ Run boy, run  
_ This ride is a Journey to _ __  
__ Run boy, run  
_ The secret inside of you _ _  
_ __ Run boy, run

_ This race is a  Prophecy _

 

***

 

The sun was high in the sky, soaking the Free Marches in an uncharacteristically blistering heat. It felt like the height of summer, as opposed to in the middle of fall like it truly was. Workers were draped in sweat, wiping the moisture off their brows and chugging water heartily before pouring it down their necks in an attempt to cool off.

The city of Wycome perpetually smelled of the ocean, and on that particular day the heat had the entire docks permeating with the stench of fish with nary a breeze to disrupt the general heaviness of the air.

Adaar was thriving.

The heat put him in a good mood. The sun felt nice against his skin, despite the strain it put on his eyes, and there was no wind to whip his hair about and have him assaulted by his own braid. Dressed in a thin coat - clothes that actually fit him for once - with his Dalish backpack over his shoulder, he stood by a humorously large postboard reading the various announcements, jobs, and bounties. There were calls for dockhands, some noble who wanted kitchen staff, a warrant for the arrest of a tax evader (“HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?”), and a notice about the coming Satinalia celebration in about a month and a half that had been thoroughly vandalized with elated gusto.

And in the middle of it all, covering up at least two other posters, was a large poster that announced the VALO-KAS MERCENARY COMPANY was recruiting.

It briefed what they did, what they looked for, and urged for interested parties to “ _ speak to Shokrakar by the Rotten Hand _ ”, whatever or wherever that was.

Valo-Kas, Shokrakar. That was qunlat. The company was run by a Tal-Vashoth. Adaar was gripped with a strange feeling of excitement, wondering if he’d finally found a place where he wouldn’t feel like a stranger. Would they welcome him? Shun him? 

He’d  _ seen _ Tal-Vashoth before. At a distance. Never spoken to them. It was strangely apprehensive. It was impossible to tell what their reason for leaving the Qun could be. And then there was the name the leader took; Shokrakar. One who struggles. Or, more colloquially,  _ rebel _ .

But in all honesty, he really shouldn’t be drawing any conclusions considering his name is  _ weapon _ .

Prejudice? Truly? Toward his own people? He has been around humans too long.

He drew a deep fish-infused breath and started walking. Either he would happen upon wherever the  _ Rotten Hand _ was, or he’d eventually have to stop and ask someone. It was early afternoon, and yet people were already imbibing recklessly in the streets. Adaar enjoyed drinking, but not that much drinking.

A group of drunken dock workers were loudly singing “Why come to Wycome?”; a merry tune which listed every acclaim to debauchery and vice the city boasted, and how that was  _ precisely why _ one would come to Wycome. There was good reason the locals called it Little Antiva. An hour or so of aimless wandering later Adaar had found no hands, rotten or otherwise, and was about to just give in and ask someone.

But the saving grace which spared him the necessity of conversing with strangers came in the shape of a pair of horns towering a head above the crowd. Another Tal-Vashoth, as shirtless as every other man and woman back on Par Vollen, with javelins strapped to his broad back. He was heading towards Adaar - not for him, until their eyes met, that is.

The Tal-Vashoth made a beeline for him the moment he spotted him, and stopped a few steps in front of him. It looked like quite the stand-off, the two of them standing in the middle of the street staring at each other. The Tal-Vashoth was tall, taller than Adaar, and much broader, and for once Adaar actually felt small.

“Valo-Kas?” he asked.

The Tal-Vashoth grunted, “ _ Shanedan _ , and no. Heading for them, though.”

“So am I.”

“Then you’re going the wrong way.”

Of course he was.

With that brief exchange over, the Tal-Vashoth carried on past Adaar. Then, a few steps later, called, “You coming or what?”

Adaar, a little startled, hoisted his backpack and caught up with the Tal-Vashoth. There was such a casual assumption of kinship Adaar didn’t quite know what to do with it. They were the same. Large, grey, horned. Or, Adaar  _ would _ have been horned if they hadn’t found it necessary to mark him as dangerous.

The Tal-Vashoth was of a lighter complexion than Adaar, though, and his short hair was light brown, not white. His eyes were violet, a shade he had entirely forgotten their eyes could be. A severe, square face, robust nose. Bred to be a warrior, for certain.

“What’re you staring at?” he demanded, hardly even glancing at Adaar.

“You,” Adaar said, and the Vashoth snorted. “I haven’t met another Tal-Vashoth before.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

The Vashoth gave him a searching look, then shrugged and said, “Well, go ahead and look, then. Probably gonna get acquainted real soon anyway.”

The Rotten Hand turned out to be a dead tree - which did actually vaguely resemble a hand - in the middle of a dirt courtyard which had likely once been used as a market. There were tables here and there, some crates, a rickety old cart leaning against a much larger wagon loaded with gear. Now, however, it was occupied by a large group of Tal-Vashoth, and nearly all of them shirtless. 

Everywhere he looked, there was someone tall, brawny and grey-skinned going about their business in a way that was so achingly familiar; bantering amongst themselves in an odd meld of Common and Qunlat, sharpening weapons, polishing armor, reading books, and drinking. One hefty Tal-Vashoth was laying on the ground, legs swaying, as he scribbled on a parchment with delicate flicks of his wrist. It was almost like Qunandar was condensed into one little area.

Adaar realized the last time he saw someone of his kind up close was ten years ago.

“Hey!” the Vashoth accompanying Adaar called out, and a few heads turned their way. “Where’s Shokrakar?”

Immediately, a woman approached them. “Right here.”

Shokrakar was tall, broad-shouldered, and covered from head to toe in bright red vitaar. Her white hair was cropped close to the skull and numerous scars littered her wide face. Most notable was a thick scar that cut across her forehead, and an oddly curved one just beneath her left eye like a crescent. And her  _ eyes _ . Never before had Adaar felt so pierced. Not even an arrow to the chest could match the ferocity of her sharp gaze; flaming orange, almost red.

“We want to join.”

Shokrakar scoffed. “No shit.”

She took her time considering both of them, then focused her attention on Adaar.

“What’s your name?”

“Kaas-Adaar,” he replied. She arched a single white eyebrow in a subtle, minute reaction to his chosen name. There was no telling what she was thinking.

“Alright, Adaar. What can you offer us?”

“Magic.”

Shokrakar snorted, eyeing the stumps atop his head, the scars mingling with his freckles. “I figured,” she said, then turned to the other Tal-Vashoth. “You. What do you call yourself?”

“Ashaad.”

Shokrakar clicked her tongue. “We already have an Ashaad.”

“I don’t care.”

Adaar smiled wryly to himself, thinking of how he’d been Ashaad once, too.

“What can you do?”

“My spear can hit a target from over 200 yards away, and I will reach it faster than anyone else will.”

“Impressive. You’ll be Ashaad Two,” Shokrakar decided with a firm nod. If she was actually impressed was impossible to tell. “You’re both in. You’ll join any of the squads we already have, and get your own if I decide you earn it. Jobs are first come first serve, unless I say it isn’t. Never trust humans with numbers, don’t take anyone’s things, don’t kill anyone unless they have it coming.”

Then, to Adaar, she added, “Don’t get possessed.”

She grinned, broad and a little frightening. “Brothers, welcome to the Valo-Kas.”

 

***

 

Adaar joined the squad of Sataa, a Tal-Vashoth who looked more a scholar than a mercenary. He was tall, bearded, and didn’t speak much. But when he did, he spoke as if each word had been considered carefully. Adaar immediately got the impression he was from the priesthood, which was confirmed when Ashaad (not Ashaad Two) asked why he left the Qun, and he replied, “After many years of deliberating, understanding and partaking in the wisdom of the Qun, I found that in my heart I could no longer call it wisdom.”

Adaar could not reign in his curiosity and asked, “Then what would you call it?”

Sataa turned his bright golden eyes on him, and there was an infinity in them that he could not grasp.

“Madness. The Qun is a foundation, but the people insist it is a finality.” Sataa made a sweeping gesture towards the Valo-Kas scattered about the courtyard. “Right here before you is a perfect example of the many dissident minds spurned by this flawed philosophy. Every one different, every one with a unique story and a unique perspective.”

“I insisted the Qun must change, or our people will never prosper. The cantos say the ocean is changeless, but the tide still rises, and it still falls. Frogs are born in water but reach maturity on land. We must be adaptable, not rigid, if we are to endure. With time, even an ocean can disappear. The very nature of the world is change,” Sataa said. “That is what the Qun has misunderstood.”

The world. The reason for his name.

“I was turned in to the re-educators for my opinions. They could not change my mind. Like Koslun the Prophet, I discovered my own wisdom.”

Ashaad had scoffed and said, “Sounds like a bunch of philosophical bullcrap to me. I say fuck the Qun! It’s as simple as that.”

Adaar still didn’t know what to think. Only that he was aghast that they would attempt to silence a sage mind such as Sataa’s. He was still far too angry himself to contemplate the Qun on any deeper level than his own opposition to it. Sataa reprimanded Ashaad for being a crass brute, and Adaar wondered about his place in the ever-changing world while staring at his hands as his fingers stretched onwards, onwards, onwards.

He was free, but could he ever truly abandon it?

When he looked away from his hands and returned to the conversation around him, he realized they were swapping the stories of their  _ great escape _ . It wasn’t just him and Sataa at the table anymore - with Ashaad at the table next to them - but Shokrakar had pulled up a chair and straddled it with her arms crossed over the back of it. Meraad actually sat o _ n _ the table, swinging their leg back and forth and getting dangerously close to kicking Adaar each time. Ashaad had decided to occupy the chair next to Adaar’s, and Ashaad Two was next to Sataa.

Sata-Kas was sort of just… sitting on the ground.

Adaar had missed Ashaad’s tale, but he did get to hear about when Shokrakar was sent to the re-educators for the tenth time and she decided she’d had enough.

She knocked out the Ben-Hassrath agent - with her head, which was what gave her the scar on her forehead - and ran into the jungle with blood streaming down her face. Somewhere out there, she stumbled upon a remote group of traditionalist Fex running an underground operation to smuggle Tal-Vashoth away from Par Vollen, and through them made it to the Free Marches.

Adaar couldn’t begin to wrap his head around what ten re-educations were like to go through.

“What about you Sata-Kas?” asked Meraad.

Sata-Kas grunted where he sat, cross armed and cross-legged, and for a moment it seemed like he wasn’t going to reply.

“Tevinter skirmish. Dreadnought friendly fire. Got left for dead,” he said.

“That why half your face is missing?” Ashaad Two asked.

“Yeah.”

There was a beat of silence, then eyes turned towards Adaar. His ears pinned to accompany his frown.

“Come on,” Meraad said, nudging him with their foot. “You’re one of us now.”

“I was on the Arishok’s ship when it wrecked,” he said, and nothing else. The others seemed disappointed.

“What, that’s it?” Ashaad said as he threw his hands up. “You’re being a buzzkill, Adaar.”

“That’s it.” Adaar crossed his arms. “Sata-Kas said just as little.”

“Yeah, but he’s Sata-Kas, and you’re not.”

The two of them had something of a staredown until Sata-Kas got up, grabbed Ashaad’s chair, and physically dragged him away from the table to disperse the building tension.

“Sit on it, kid,” he grunted as the rest of the gathering laughed at the baffled look on Ashaad’s face.

It was camaraderie, but it wasn’t like with the Serpents. With them, it was about gold, making a profit. You made friends because you got along with certain people. With the Valo-Kas, the gold came second. Everyone there could just has well joined any other company. They all had something in common; being outcasts no matter where they turned. Outcasts from the Qun, outcasts from the  _ bas _ .

This was his Kith. His People.  
  


***  
  


Meraad’s face was pulled into a deep frown of concentration where they leaned over Adaar, who was frowning not quite so deeply and not quite so concentrated.

“Are you gonna put it in or what?” he said.

“I am! Just give me a second to work out the hole.”

Adaar rolled his eyes.

“It’s not that complicated. Just hold it still and push.”

Meraad huffed, “If you can’t be patient you can do it yourself.”

“I won’t get a good angle that way.”

“Then stop bugging me. I know what I’m doing.”

“Can you two shut up? It sounds like you can’t figure out how to fuck,” Ashaad Two yelled from the other room.

“I’m piercing his ears!” Meraad yelled back and brandished the needle in his general direction.

“Then fucking talk like it! It’s driving me nuts.”

Meraad let out a string of unsavory Qunlat terms under their breath - among which Adaar’s keen hearing picked up something about how Meraad  _ wouldn’t leave the door open because they’re not a barbarian _ \- and shifted their attention back to Adaar’s ears, 

“Alright, I got it,” they said, and then a sharp pain bloomed from Adaar’s earlobe as the needle broke skin. It quickly settled into a softer burn as Meraad let the needle sit there for a moment while they fetched the earring: a simple golden stud.

The other ear’s piercing progressed in the same manner, and when everything was said and done Meraad lifted a mirror in front of Adaar. The earrings looked nice. They were perfectly symmetrical (not that Adaar doubted Meraad’s ability) and complimented the gold of his eyes.

“Now you’re even prettier,” Meraad said with a grin. “We can do the rest later on, after those heal.”

Adaar nodded. “Anything I should do?”

“Pinch em with your freaky ice fingers to keep them from swelling. Use common sense.”

“My fingers are not freaky,” Adaar said as he stood. Meraad set the mirror back down and started putting away their needles and elfroot poultices.

“Tell me that when you’re not staring at them for thirty minutes straight every other day.”

Then Meraad gracefully glided out of the room without a sound, followed by Ashaad Two’s startled shout when they most likely scared him half to death by just  _ appearing _ , as they were wont to do. Adaar crouched down to check himself out in the mirror one last time before closing the door to the washroom and drawing himself a bath.

After a moment of struggling he managed to untie the ribbon that held his braid together and let his hair out in a cascade of white draping over his back. He sat on the edge of the bath, carding his fingers through it absently. Now that he thought about it, his easily misinterpreted conversation with Meraad was pretty funny. At the moment he had just been too impatient about getting it over with.

He touched his new earring; gingerly, as to not irritate the raw flesh. Meraad had grumbled they’d at least close the door, which was also pretty funny. Adaar smiled to himself, amused.

Wait. Would they close the door before having sex, or would they close the door before having sex with  _ him _ ?

His smile dropped. Surely, that’s not what they meant? Qunari don’t have sex with their friends. Except they weren’t Qunari anymore, were they? Adaar had never… Well, he’d always thought himself too busy, or maybe he felt it’d be too vulnerable to get his bits out around someone else.

In an ironic contrast to his train of thought, he stripped and sank into the warm bath and submerged himself all the way up to his eyes.

Social cues were difficult enough as it was with how he consistently forgot to make eye contact, or even pay attention to body language, and now he had to go and think himself into a corner of  _ ‘does or doesn’t Meraad want to sleep with me?’ _

If he were to be honest, Meraad was good looking. They had long strong legs, a soft pouch of a belly on an otherwise lithe body, and an inviting little smile. They were just a little taller than Adaar, with tightly braided hair and vivid sea green eyes.

He could pick them up. He knew that, because he’d done so numerous times, when they’d been wounded, or too drunk to walk without eating dirt. The other races liked kissing their partner’s mouths. Would that be nice? It seemed complicated, all that lips and tongue happening. His hands settled on his thighs, just resting there. His hands were wide, with long awkward fingers. Meraad’s hands were slim and dexterous; perfect for a rogue. Hands that can pick locks, pierce ears, brush through hair, or maybe… wrap around...

Adaar swallowed, feeling warm for reasons that had nothing to do with the hot water he was soaking in, and his hands slid down his thighs.

After his  _ very _ relaxing bath, Adaar brushed his hair out, braided it like Shiovera had shown him years ago, and dressed. When he headed downstairs he found most of his squad was not there, except for Sataa, who was in the midst of dealing cards for a game of diamondback.

“Adaar, get your ass over here,” Shokrakar called. Adaar looked over to see her leaning against the windowsill near the front door. A slender woman with large youthful eyes and elegant twisting horns was with her. No, not a woman, he realized as he came closer. A girl.

“You need me?” he asked, not at all shy about looking at the young Tal-Vashoth, who stared right back at him with big green eyes. A teenager, probably. Maybe around sixteen years old.

“This is Katoh. She’s a mage,” Shokrakar said, slapping a large hand onto her shoulder. She didn’t buckle under it, which was impressive considering how willowy she was.

“I’m not looking to adopt,” Adaar said. Katoh made a face like she was simultaneously affronted and amused.

“Save your sass, Adaar. I want you to tutor her. Her parents are paying good money for it.”

Adaar turned to Shokrakar then. “What gave you the idea that I would make a good teacher?”

“Nothing. You’re the only mage we have.”

Adaar frowned while Katoh bit her lip to keep from laughing.

Infallible logic, to be sure. But despite all of Adaar’s misgivings, how was he supposed to decline when could just  _ feel _ Katoh brimming with excitement? It was coming off of her in waves. He realized Shokrakar was doing this on purpose. He’d get her back for this.

“Fine,” he sighed, and Katoh immediately started beaming.

“Good man,” Shokrakar said, gave Katoh one last pat on the shoulder, and left them alone. Katoh was all but vibrating where she stood.

“Yes!” she squealed, punching the air. “I’ll be the best apprentice you’ll ever have, just wait!”

Adaar, predictably, was quietly panicking. He didn’t know his way around children. He barely got to  _ be _ a children. There was so much he didn’t know regarding the ins and outs of teaching, and mentoring, and all that was involved in the whole  _ coming of age _ process that he was denied.

He figured the best place to start was to establish some kind of connection, and the best way to do that was to share a meal, so he spun on his heel and made for the bar.

Meanwhile, Katoh was chatting his ear off.

“It’s Adaar, right? When do we start? What kind of magic can you do? What does lyrium taste like? Are the weird dreams forever or do they stop when you get good? What’s the difference between the Fade and the Veil? Do mages have a longer or shorter lifespan than normal people? Why-”

“Katoh!” he interrupted firmly, and she immediately went quiet, the tips of her ears drooping.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be annoying. I’m just so excited,” she said.

Adaar sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Then he turned to face her, placing his hands on her shoulders and bending down to be eye-level with her.

“Listen to me, and listen closely,” he said, keeping his voice down to really sell the importance of what he was about to say. “It’s within your best interest not to go yapping carelessly about magic in public. Wycome may not care much for the Chantry and its teachings, but if you are to come with me there will be places who do, and they do not look kindly upon mages.”

Katoh looked at him with such an attentive, serious expression he almost forgot what he wanted to say.

“The first thing you have to learn is to guard who you are, and guard it closely. You can never know where the Chantry has its eyes and ears.” Then, grimly, he added, “And even less so, where the Ben-Hassrath has its eyes and ears.”

“I understand,” she said solemnly in such a stark contrast to her previous bubbly demeanor.

“Remember: getting locked up in a Circle is not the worst thing that could happen to you,” he said, and he saw her eyes flick up to the stumps atop his head, saw her complexion grow paler, and for the first time in his life he felt that there was someone who could begin to understand him.

He gave her shoulders a squeeze.

“I’m done scaring you now,” he said and straightened up. “Let’s get something to eat.”

Katoh was no longer talking at the speed of light, but she did stare at everything Adaar did with huge, watchful eyes; stepping up to the bar and dropping his fat coin pouch on the counter, putting an order for a large meal. Adaar was intimately familiar with having his every move watched, but certainly not in such a manner. Like she was in awe of him. It was a little unnerving.

She also had a ravenous appetite, which was to be expected from a growing girl. She could certainly use to fill out a little more with how gangly she was. Adaar, by contrast, was not shoveling food into his mouth like a smith shoveling coal into his forge, and mostly just picked at his meal while watching in morbid fascination.

“Katoh,” he said. She looked up, pausing mid-chew with a ‘ _ hrmm?’ _ “How old are you?”

“‘mshvfteen!” 

“Swallow your food before you speak or no one’s going to understand you.”

Katoh swallowed, then cleared her throat.

“I’m seventeen. Soon eighteen,” she said, and hesitated for a moment before asking, “How old are you?”

Adaar had to take a moment to consider that. Ever since his eighteenth birthday he hadn’t really kept all that close track of it.

“Twenty one, I believe.”

“What, really? You look older. Probably because of your hair, and those dark circles.”

Adaar sighed and elected to ignore that remark. “Your parents are Tal-Vashoth?”

Katoh nodded, “and I’m Vashoth, because I was born here in the Marches, and not on Par Vollen.”

“I wasn’t aware there was a distinction,” Adaar said.

“Not a big one. I just don’t really want to call myself a rebel. Cause I can’t rebel against something I’ve never been a part of, or known, or been involved with, right? I’d oppose it as an outsider, right? I’m as  _ bas _ as the next fool. The Qun doesn’t know I exist. I just… look like this.”

Adaar chuckled. “And people will still call you Qunari because of it.”

Katoh waved around her fork like a teacher’s cane. “We have a very complicated and structured community of grey and  _ really _ grey. We can’t expect humans to possibly understand the intricacies of our terminology.”

Adaar’s smile widened and he already felt a budding fondness for the girl. She was witty, and carefree in the way children ought to be, but she weaved her sentences like a scholar. There was a sharp mind behind her playfulness. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad.

“Tomorrow I want to see what you can do, and then we’ll figure it out from there.”

“Great! I can’t wait,” Katoh said, and raised her mug in a toast. “To my apprehensive mentor!”

Adaar shook his head, still smiling, but raised his mug and tapped it against hers all the same. “To my eager apprentice.”

 

***

 

It had been a long time since Desire demons had bothered him, because it had been a long time since he really desired something; acceptance, freedom, retribution, the list went on. In recent years, however, that list had been trimmed down by a lot, and eventually reduced to such mundane things (like “I want ale” or “Please let there be chocolate on the market today”) that no self-respecting Desire demon would be drawn to him.

That night, however, Adaar had a very interesting encounter with Desire of a sort he hadn’t experienced before, and it caught him so off guard he even indulged in it for a little while before he realized that there was no way Meraad could bend that way because of their bad hip - trampled by a mule, an embarrassing story they hate to tell - and he turned it away.

He woke up at dawn and decided to wait for Katoh outside in the Rotten Hand courtyard so he could enjoy the sunrise. The courtyard was showered in gold, the grass looking more like needles than vegetation, frozen dew clinging to them like grains of sugar, and instead of dirt he was standing on a precious metal. It was chilly and the breeze nipped at the tips of his ears.

It wouldn’t be long, now, until the first snow of the year came.

Dawn came and went, and the sky was its traditional blue instead of gold. Adaar was watching a flock of little birds peck at the ground when Katoh stumbled through the door.

“I’m here! I’m here!” she panted, as if she’d ran the whole way from her room to him. “Sorry. Did you wait long? Good morning.”

“Good morning, and yes,” Adaar greeted. Katoh looked like he’d just punched her, or swallowed a puppy whole before her very eyes. He picked up his backpack from where it sat by his feet. “Come along.”

With a jerk of his head, Adaar made for the street. He saw no point in reprimanding her for being late; she already felt bad about it as it was.

“But what about breakfast?” Katoh asked, jogging to catch up with him.

“We will eat breakfast when we arrive.”

“Uh huh, and where are we arriving?”

“Outside Wycome. This sort of training within the city walls would be, if not suicidal, then foolish.”

The city was waking up around them. Housemaids opening windows, merchants setting up their stalls, bakers starting their first batches of bread for the day. Sounds and movement had a slow transition from stumbling drunks and the murmurs of the underworld to the daily lives of commonfolk. Adaar and Katoh didn’t draw too many eyes, as the people had gotten somewhat used to the presence of Tal-Vashoth, but it was difficult to ignore someone so large and, well, different.

Wycome’s walls were eventually behind them, and a thirty minute walk settled them in a clearing of the nearby woods, sheltered from any unsympathetic eyes.

Adaar dropped his pack and retrieved their breakfast. Katoh joyfully accepted the cloth-wrapped meal.

“Finally. I’m starving,” she said as she sat down cross-legged on the ground with the bundle in her lap. She unwrapped it eagerly and let out a delighted noise at the bread, meat and cheese she discovered.

Adaar sat down as well, and the two of them were far too busy eating to have a conversation.

Breakfast settled and bellies full, they could finally get to what Adaar dragged them out there for in the first place.

“First of all, when did your magic manifest, and how?” he asked.

Katoh worried her lip between her teeth as she thought it over. “A year or so ago, maybe, and I just kept having this same dream over and over. Then a month ago, I dreamt I could breathe underwater, and when I woke up  _ everything  _ was just _ wet _ , like it had rained indoors. And then at some point I found I could just… make water with my hands.”

“I see.” So her intrinsic gift was to pull water from the Fade, much like himself. Maybe eventually she could learn to freeze it, as well. “Then that is where we will start.”

“But how am I supposed to fight or protect myself with water?” Katoh protested. “What am I supposed to do; flick droplets into their eyes until they go away?”

“Water can be lethal if enough force is behind it,” Adaar said. “A broken dam can kill many.”

Katoh rolled her eyes. “Right. Like I’d be able to make enough water to match a dam.”

“In time you might. Until then, put the force of a raging flood into something small,” he suggested.

Katoh looked at him skeptically, but droplets began dripping from her fingers either way. The dripping quickly sped up and became a steady stream. Small, but consistent. Adaar was impressed even so, how easily and naturally she could pull water from the Fade with hardly any effort at all.

“Now focus it. Try making it strong enough to write your name.” He gestured towards the dirt with his foot.

“That’s boring. I’ll write your name.”

Katoh did as he said. Her brow was deeply drawn in concentration as she focused the stream of water into a fine point of high pressure. After a moment, the stream was strong enough to manipulate the dirt, and it was less of a trickle and more of a pillar. One by one, she spelled out the letters of his name.

_ K A S _ ...

“Two As,” he corrected.

" What?” she said airily, sounding distracted.

“ _ Kaas _ has two As. My name is not Sword-Weapon.”

Katoh immediately lost control of the water, the consequential aquatic burst erasing the letters she had written in the sand. She was laughing so hard she doubled over while clutching her belly.

“Yes, yes, it’s hilarious. Now will you please focus?” Adaar said, exasperated.

“ _ Sword-Weapon _ ,” Katoh wheezed, and he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

 

Katoh was a handful and not at the same time. She was a handful in the way that everything and anything was humorous to her, and she was not in the way that she listened carefully to everything she was told, and implemented it as soon as she figured out how. Adaar quickly found she was reserved around anyone who wasn’t tall and grey, wary of their intentions, of their allegiances. She’d joke around all the same, granted, but there was a hardness to her eyes.

She was gifted with magic, but she was naive; it manifested in her late teens, and no one in the little Vashoth farming community she grew up in persecuted her for it. It was a novelty, something exciting, and any suffering because of it was just a concept, something far away. She understood, but she didn’t  _ understand _ , and that worried Adaar.

He worried that one day she might slip up. He worried that one day she’d make the wrong joke, or be too careless.

Only a few months into tutoring her and he already felt a responsibility for her. He wanted to protect her, to shelter her and ensure that nothing he went through ever happened to Katoh. If that carefree, unburdened smile ever vanished from her face, he wouldn’t know what to do.

Adaar stared up at the ceiling of his room, unable to settle down. His mind had decided that this night it would grant him images of Katoh crouched low and broken, mouth stitched shut and dark green eyes pleading with him. He kept tossing and turning, having to remind himself to breathe calmly, that it won’t come to pass, that he’d protect her.

It was far into the night, late enough that it was early, and the birds were waking up. His eyes felt thick with how tired he was, and the room was awfully cold thanks to his rattled state of mind. At some point he couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore, and he didn’t realize he had dozed off until he wasn’t anymore.

“Adaar. Hey, Adaar, wake up.”

Adaar opened his eyes.

Katoh reared back, clutching her chest. “Fuck. That’s terrifying.”

Too exhausted to even be irritated, Adaar sat up while rubbing his eyes. Around a wide yawn, he asked, “What is?”

“You don’t even stir. You just... open your eyes. That’s beyond creepy.”

“I can’t help you’re so faint of heart. What’s going on?”

Katoh took a moment to stare at him like a demon was about to crawl out of his mouth, then quickly got over the shock of learning some people didn’t wake up like she did and spread her arms as wide as her grin. “It’s my birthday,” she declared, drumming her fingers against his mattress.

“Congratulations, you’re an adult,” Adaar said monotonously. “Can I go back to sleep now?”

“What? No!” Katoh yanked the covers off of him completely. His only protest was a quiet grunt and not even as much as a twitch of movement. “We’re going to celebrate! All of us!”

Adaar flopped down and buried his face in his pillow. “What for?” he groaned. “So you survived another year. Might as well celebrate every day, in that case.”

Birthdays were just to keep track of when you could and couldn’t breed, anyway.

“Because it’s  _ fun _ , you oaf!” Katoh said and stole his pillow as well in order to assault him with it. “Don’t be such a Qunari.”

“I’m not,” Adaar protested as he tried to protect his face from the relentless attack. “I’m quite literally- Stop it! The very opposite- Oof! Of a Qunari.”

“Then get up and celebrate,” Katoh said with one final smack. She left the pillow on top of Adaar’s head and with that, left to most likely wake up everyone else in a similar manner. He laid there for a moment, wondering when he had chosen to suffer and why the world thought he must continue to do so in the most ludicrous ways.

Except he wasn’t suffering. He was the happiest he’d ever been.

He went downstairs wearing only trousers, because he figured with the way Katoh was, the celebration was most likely to get out of hand very fast, and when things get out of hand in such a manner, in such a context, it is best to be shirtless. Less laundry that way.

As people were bullied out of their warm, comfortable beds, it turned out many had the same idea - or were just always shirtless to begin with - and soon the tavern filled up with Tal-Vashoth. Then Katoh arrived on the scene, and things quickly got out of hand.

Day drinking was one thing, but morning drinking was something else entirely. Ale, mead, beer and even Maraas-Lok was passed around. Food brought out in vast amounts in the shapes of meat, cheese, fruit, and pastries. Someone threw a pie across the room and the mold got caught on Karriss’ horn. Ashaad and Ashaad Two began a drinking contest. Shokrakar and Sata-Kas arm wrestled over and over until tables started breaking.

Adaar just watched the chaos in a mix of dismay and glee; it was all so shameless. There was nothing holding any of them back.

Late into evening everything had calmed down. Those who hadn’t retired or simply passed out where they were had gathered around one of the few tables that still stood and played cards. Sata-Kas, as usual, was winning by a landslide. Adaar cared little for winning, and kept playing for the company. Ashaad Two seemed hellbent on winning back everything he’d lost, and losing even more in the progress. Katoh had declared she was far too sloshed to think strategically and was content to deal the cards.

Adaar felt the presence of Meraad approach as easily as if he’d heard them - which, of course, he hadn’t, because no one can hear Meraad - and said, “Hello, Meraad.”

Everyone at the table jumped, some more than others, and looked at them.

“The two of you in the same room is a lethal fucking combination,” Ashaad Two said after he regained his bearings. “Meraad is deathly silent and Adaar can just fucking…  _ smell _ people or something.”

“I don’t smell anything besides you, Ashaad,” Adaar said, earning a _ ‘Hey!’  _ from the wounded party. “I can sense them.”

“Oooh, he  _ senses _ people,” Katoh said and waggled her fingers. “What a mystic. Wait, why can’t I sense people?”

Adaar moved a card from one spot to another, organizing them better. “Because you weren’t blind for eight years, I imagine,” he said. “You probably could, if you bothered to.”

“Maybe one day you’ll actually tell me  _ how _ to do things instead of ‘ _ Just do it, Katoh, it’s not hard. _ ’”

“That’s not even what I said.” Though her impression wasn’t that far off. Meraad just smiled through the entire exchange and took a seat on the table next to Adaar and started absently twirling the tip of his braid around their finger.

He wondered if he could put his hand on their leg, or if that would be inappropriate, or unwelcome.

“Have you heard? The Arishok is dead,” they said.

Adaar looked up, and Meraad just kept on smiling.

“What?” Sata-kas said, nonplussed, and without even taking his eyes off his cards. Though it was more of a grunt than a word, as with everything he said.

“Yeah. He attacked Kirkwall, then some human challenged him to a duel and killed him single-handedly. We could finally take jobs there.”

Katoh chimed in, “I don’t think they’d be eager to take in more big horny people so soon after that.”

“Call us ‘big horny people’ ever again and I  _ will _ throw you into the well, kid,” Ashaad Two warned.

“As if you’re not the biggest and horniest of us all.”

He leveled her with a glare. She was unperturbed.

“Seriously, your name should be  _ defransdim _ with the way you--” Katoh broke off with a yelp as Ashaad Two hurled his tankard at her face and struck her right in the forehead, and effectively drenching her and half the table in ale. No one batted an eye.

“Fuckin’ dick,” she growled into her hands.

Adaar shuffled his cards around. He had a decent hand, but it could be better.

“Did you know the human name Richard can be shortened to Dick?” he said casually, far too versed in what would cheer his apprentice up.

Katoh immediately started howling with laughter. Ashaad Two put his elbow on the table and pointed at him.

“Adaar, if you think I’m going to believe that for one second-”

“It’s true,” Sata-kas grunted. “Met a guy once. Dick Parand.”

“You can’t be serious. Tell me you’re not serious.”

Katoh was doubled over and wheezing.

“I’m gonna get a refill,” Adaar said and stood, ignoring Ashaad Two’s demands that he return and swear to honesty, grabbing his empty tankard and heading over to the large keg sitting atop the untended bar. He refilled it the way the barkeep had shown him once; keeping the tankard tilted at an angle until it’s half full.

He glanced back at the table and saw that Meraad was gone. That was no surprise, they came and went like the tide, but what was surprising was the unfamiliar Tal-Vashoth that was suddenly sitting there with the others. A woman around his age, he’d venture to guess.

As he approached the table he picked up on their conversation.

“-were there when the Arishok was killed?” Ashaad Two was asking. The woman nodded.

“I saw it, yes,” she said. Hearing her voice, Adaar couldn’t help but feel there was something strangely familiar about her.

“Damn,” Sata-kas grunted.

Ashaad Two made a noise of assent. “Must’ve been a bastard of a fight. So you saw him dropped, decided fuck it, then came here and joined up?”

“I thought I would like to learn how to fight, and not many humans want to teach a Tal-Vashoth.”

Adaar was almost to the table now and he could clearly see her face, yet he still couldn’t place her. He was sure he’d never seen her before, but there was just something nagging at him. Something out of place.

“What did you say your name was?” Katoh asked.

He just had to walk past Sata-Kas and then he’d be at his seat. It was so odd. It was just something-

“Oh, I don’t think I did. It’s Aban.”

Adaar dropped his tankard. Everyone turned their heads to look at him. The woman, Aban, her eyes were blue. Like the sky on a clear midday. Like the eyes peering at him from across a dark bedroom in his memories.

“Adaar?” Katoh said slowly. “I know you vacate your body sometimes but this is new even for you.”

He could barely hear her. Could barely register anything around him at all. His face was numb and prickling painfully all at once, and his heart was racing. It couldn’t be real, could it? She was looking at him like she didn’t recognize him, didn’t know who he was. It was a coincidence, surely.

“Did I do something wrong?” Aban said, glancing at the others. They shook their heads.

“Ashaad,” Adaar said.

“What?” Ashaad Two said.

Adaar shook his head. “No. Not you. Me.”

“Your name is Adaar.”

“Shut up!” Adaar snapped, making Ashaad Two flinch, and everyone else blink rapidly. Adaar rarely raised his voice, if ever. “Just shut up.”

He was still staring at the woman who called herself Aban.

“When I.. When I was a boy,” he said, already feeling his voice failing him. But he had to be sure. He had to know. “They called me Ashaad, before I was Saarebas.”

Aban stared at him, not comprehending. Adaar felt his heart sink from disappointment and relief all at once, and he was about to tell everyone to forget about it when she suddenly slammed a hand over her mouth. She stood up so abruptly the stool she sat on tumbled over.

“You’re alive,” she whispered, her eyes slowly filling with tears that began to spill heavily over her cheeks. “You’re free.”

“Oh  _ fuck _ ,” Katoh said, heartfelt, and in all honesty Adaar could not have put it better.  
  


They went outside, for privacy and fresh air.

Aban was gently crying, and Adaar didn’t know what to say, or do. Eventually, Aban calmed down enough to speak.

“When did.. When did you escape?” she asked between soft gasps.

“Years ago. When the ship wrecked. I woke up on the beach and I just.. Ran,” he said. He couldn’t bear to look at her. It was too strange to see Aban’s eyes in this grown woman’s face. Hearing her voice was bad enough; mature, but still the same. “A Dalish clan took me in for a while. They removed my bonds, gave me some guidelines to control my magic, and sent me on my way.”

Aban reached down and grabbed his hand, and it felt like a painful jolt of electricity up his arm. They were children when they’d last touched, he was certain. He hadn’t seen her when they crossed paths on the dreadnought, and he wondered what he had looked like to her. Blind and mute and bound. A living weapon. A breathing tool.

His hand clenched tightly around hers.

“There wasn’t a day where I didn’t think of you,” she said quietly, enduring the likely painful grasp without complaint. “When I didn’t recognize you among the other Saarebas, I hoped that maybe you’d been set free, one way or another.”

One way or another. The way she said that, the tone of her voice.

“You thought me dead?” Adaar asked.

“Better dead than…. That.”

Silence settled, grim and dark and sad.

“Why did you leave when the Arishok died? Why not sooner?” Adaar found himself asking.

Aban sighed and began fiddling with the red ropes wrapped around her collar.

“Remember the Tome of Koslun?” she said. “The pirate who stole it, she showed up during the siege of Kirkwall and wanted to return it. To save people, or do the right thing, I don’t really remember what she said. She told the Champion of Kirkwall ‘ _ This is your influence _ ’ or something. They were friends, I think.”

“The Arishok demanded the Champion turned the pirate over to them, because the Qun demanded she be punished, and he… He refused,” Aban said, eyes glimmering. “He refused the Qun, for the sake of his friend. He didn’t even hesitate.”

“He fought the Arishok  _ to the death _ , even when he could just as easily have turned her over. He made the Arishok promise that if he won, the Qunari would leave Kirkwall.”

Aban’s hands were shaking, but her voice was firm.

“He had the strength to do what I couldn’t, all those years ago,” she said. “I didn't think it was possible; to oppose the Qun and succeed.”

Aban turned to Adaar with a face aglow with passion. Her eyes were so blue. Like the sky reflecting on the ocean.

“I wanted to be like Hawke. When the Qunari fleet left, I stayed behind.”

Adaar was glad she was there, but at the same time almost wished she wasn’t. It felt like the whole world was slowly tilting, and he was about to topple over. His legs were bending in ways legs were never meant to bend and he could scarcely form a single cohesive thought. There was far too much they had to talk about.

“It’s late,” Adaar’s mouth said.

Aban nodded.

“Tomorrow I can introduce you to Shokrakar. She’ll teach you how to fight.”

Aban leaned her head against his shoulder, and they stood there together after all these years. Away from Par Vollen, with all the world before them. They never imagined the long, winding path that would lead up to the future they had envisioned.

“That… That sounds good.”

 

***

 

In the following year the Valo-Kas mercenaries helped Aban come to terms with a lifetime of doubt as they had helped everyone under their name. She got along splendidly with Sataa, as they seemed to share much of the same views on the Qun. She wasn’t angry, like Adaar, only saddened. She told him she’d never been able to shake the memory of the Ben-Hassrath taking him away, even as Tama had told them over and over to forget about him; that he would serve his purpose in a different way; that victory was in the Qun.

Many of them kept drilling her for details about how the Arishok died, and she was glad to recount them. The more she told it, the more confident she became, and eventually she sounded like a seasoned storyteller. Her tales would branch out from the Arishok’s duel, to a conspiracy against them, the viscount’s son getting involved with an Ashaad, a dwarf trying to steal the recipe for gaatlok. Her stiff, disciplined posture would loosen up into something more fluid and animated, and she’d begun to gesture wildly with her hands to emphasize.

Every story she told about Kirkwall seemed to wrap back around to the Champion, whom she admired greatly. Adaar thought if he ever crossed paths with this Hawke, he’d have to make sure to thank him - as unlikely as that was.

She was conversing quietly with Meraad a little ahead of Adaar, and the two of them kept glancing back at him. It was frustrating, and they likely knew exactly how badly they were making his skin prickle with their  _ gossiping _ . He couldn’t begin to pick up on what they were saying for the creaking of the wagon next to him.

The Valo-Kas were on the road to Starkhaven. They had spent the last few weeks in Kirkwall, but just a few jobs into their stay they decided that place was a disaster waiting to happen, and with two mages among them sticking around for the inevitable eruption wasn’t worth it.

They always travelled in divided groups. A huge party of Tal-Vashoth would set anyone on edge regardless of race and allegiance, so they split they journey into days. Katoh, Shokrakar, Aban, Adaar, Meraad, Ashaad Two and Sata-Kas made up the second group, leaving a day after the first one. A strong enough force to be able to take on any potential highwaymen, but small enough that landowners and settlements wouldn’t take up arms in fear of a Qunari invasion.

Sata-Kas and Katoh were having a grunt-off behind him, which was a welcome distraction from whatever was being discussed in front of him. Ashaad Two joined in the grunting, and Adaar felt the beginnings of laughter at the bottom of his throat when Shokrakar barked, “Look sharp!”

A group of humans were heading their way, trudging along the road in a similar fashion to the Valo-Kas. Some were armed, but didn’t look particularly threatening; just your average caravan guard. They didn’t spare them a glance beyond a curt nod of acknowledgement as they passed.

Sata-Kas had just resumed the grunting again when behind them, someone yelled.

“ _ Nehraa Qun _ !”

They were not a human caravan. They were Qunari.

Meraad immediately vanished. Aban drew her blade and he heard the heavy thud of Sata-Kas hauling his enormous maul off his back.

There was no stand-off when Adaar whirled around. The Qunari were already advancing on them. Somehow, in all of this, he saw one of them wielded the blade of an Arvaarad. This group was hunting Tal-Vashoth.

Adaar summoned a wall of ice out of the ground just in time to prevent his face from being struck by a crossbow bolt. He didn’t even bother to feel anything about the surprised declaration of  _ Saarebas _ among them.

Katoh slammed into his side in her haste to make her way over. “I’m going to try flooding them. Freeze it,” she said urgently. Water spilled from her fingers, then her palms. The stream grew larger and stronger and it looked as if her arms had become aquatic; two rushing rivers spilling forth from her shoulders. The water covered the road, but it did nothing to stop the Qunari’s advance. Adaar lunged forward, dropped down and thrust his hands into the water.

The entire river froze in a flash, and some of the Qunari soldiers got their feet stuck in the ice.

It didn’t stop them, but it did reset the advantage they had thanks to their surprise attack. Another bolt whizzed by Adaar’s head and the clash finally came.

Sata-Kas crushed the ribcage of one unfortunate Qunari. Shokrakar’s toothed greatsword was sawing through another’s neck in a very gruesome display. Meraad had successfully flanked them and grabbed an unsuspecting soldier from behind and slit his throat.

Adaar hailed frozen knives on top of them, and those foolish enough to not wear helmets suffered for it. The group of Qunari was much larger than them by quite a number of bodies, but they were just as strong and co-ordinated as they were, and not to mention they had magic.

“Adaar, behind you!” Aban shouted. Adaar turned to see an Arvaraad sprinting towards him, sword set to thrust. They were too fast. He wouldn’t get a barrier up in time.

His view of the Arvaraad was suddenly obscured by Aban stepping in-between them. With an angled sweep, her sword embedded into their neck and opened their jugular. The Arvaraad grasped their throat and slowly sank to their knees as they rapidly bled out.

“You saved me,” Adaar breathed. His ears were roaring with the rush of blood and adrenaline, and everything felt focused and unfocused at once. Aban didn’t respond. Concern sprung up into his throat and he reached out to touch her shoulder. She turned languidly, looking at him with a defeated expression.

The Arvaraad’s sword had slipped beneath her ribcage and up through her lung. Survivable, if the blade hadn’t been coated in venom. Adaar felt himself pale. The neurotoxin worked quickly, and Adaar caught her as she collapsed. Despite the chaos going on around them, Adaar kneeled on the battlefield with Aban’s head in his lap.

Blood poured out of the corner of her mouth. Her blue eyes found his, and she smiled.

“ _ Kadan _ ,” she wheezed between labored, choking breaths. She coughed, flecks of blood scattering over her clothes and Adaar’s face. She tried to say something else, but all that came out was horrible gurgling, and she choked again. Then after a million lifetimes, her eyes unfocused. She looked past Adaar, past the Veil, past everything. She was still warm against his hands, still a solid weight in his arms. But that wasn’t her anymore, just the vessel she left behind.

A great, gaping maw of emptiness opened inside Adaar. A black swirling pit deep within his chest. The Arvaraad had killed her instead of him. She took the blow meant for him and now she was dead. Because of the Arvaraad, because of his duty, because of what the Qun demanded. Around him the battle continued like her death didn’t shift the entire world onto its side.

A spark within the emptiness. An all-consuming rolling fury spread from the center of his being to the very ends of his body and soul. His hand trembled when he closed her eyes. His arms shook when he gently placed Aban’s body on the ground and stood. He couldn’t feel anything but heat. Red, hot, burning rage.

A Qunari soldier was in a deadlock with Ashaad Two just ahead. To the left of them, Shokrakar was holding off two of them at once. Sata-kas laid unmoving on the ground, dead or unconscious. Meraad weaved in and out of the battle in a desperate dance, chased around by three men at once. All around the Valo-Kas were struggling with more than they could handle. They were losing.

He had thought the Qun had already taken all it could from him.

Flames exploded from his hands, coiling up his arms and up towards the sky in a blazing inferno. Everyone stopped their battles in lieu of the wildfire Adaar had become. Qunari and Valo-kas alike just stared, stunned.

Adaar raised his hands, and two pillars of concentrated fire shot forward and consumed the soldiers by Shokrakar, the roar of it nearly drowning out their screams entirely. He didn’t let up until their skin was black and charred, and he turned his eyes to the soldier who’d been struggling to overpower Ashaad.

“ _ Ebasit kata itwa-ost _ ,” Adaar growled, pointing his hands towards him.

As the soldier was reduced to embers in the same manner as his unfortunate brethren, the remaining Qunari were quickly falling back. Adaar watched their retreating backs, drinking deep of the rage and summoning the flames to himself and gathering them in his palms, and--

Suddenly he was soaked to the bone, dripping wet and utterly and completely extinguished. Steam rose up off of him in a hissing pillar and he turned, flabbergasted, and saw Katoh with her hands outstretched towards him.

“I.. I think you need to cool off,” she said, breathless.

Laughter bubbled up in his throat and he sank to his knees, fisting his hair so tightly it hurt. The hysterical laughter broke into sobs, and Katoh crouched down next to him and pulled him close. He hadn’t even noticed her come over. Her soft sniffing wasn’t nearly as despairing as his hard sobs, but he wasn’t alone in his grief.

Some feet away, Sata-Kas groaned and asked if something was burning.

***

There was no funeral for Aban, because there were no funeral rites for the Valo-Kas to perform. Under the Qun, when someone died, their body was just that: a body, and not worth wasting time or resources on. You mourned their spirit, not their flesh, and then you moved on.

Instead, they drank in her honor. Kaariss gave a poetic eulogy for her which wasn’t great, but it had heart, and in the end that’s what truly mattered. Towards the end of the night, Adaar stood to make a toast. He didn’t give a speech, or say anything meaningful or deeply profound. He said, “For Aban” and the Valo-Kas echoed him.

Adaar’s grief was like a pendulum. Some days he’d be fine, and Aban’s smile before she died was enough. Others, he felt like his body was tearing itself apart with what ifs. But the first time he’d lost Aban, he’d been alone. This time, there was Katoh, and Ashaad Two, and Sataa, and everyone else. She belonged to them, too, and it made it easier.

Sataa once mentioned some believed spirits go into the Fade when they die, and from there journeyed on. Adaar tried not to think too hard about it, but after hearing this he swore he’d wake up from Aban laughing in his dreams.

Years passed. Life continued. The world continued. Ever-changing.  
  
  


In 9:41 Dragon, the Valo-Kas were causing a ruckus in a small Marcher town, quickly staking a claim on the tavern as patron after patron escaped the chaos until the bar was mostly Tal-Vashoth and a few select, brave human souls who were either too stubborn or too drunk to leave.

Adaar sat with his feet up on the table, almost falling asleep in his chair despite the tumult of his Kith around him. He’d long since associated the noise with safety, and home, and nothing put him more at ease. Then the door slammed open, jolting him awake, and Shokrakar had to duck to avoid concussing herself on the doorframe.

“Esteemed bastards!” she called, effectively garnering the attention of every soul in the place. “There’s a new job waiting for us.”

There was a beat of silence as she just stared at her company.

“Well, don’t leave us hanging,” Ashaad Two yelled.

“I’m sure you’re all aware of the human mages and templars tearing each other apart for the past year,” Shokrakar said, then added, “and if you’re not; the human mages and templars have been tearing each other apart for the past year.”

“What about it?” Katoh asked, not seeming particularly interested.

Shokrakar brandished an official-looking scroll.

“That glowing lady in Orlais wants to get them all together to talk it out, and someone has offered to pay us to make sure everyone behaves.” 

She clapped her hands together, giving them a shark-like grin.

“Sata-Kas, Meraad, Ashaad, Ashaad Two and Adaar - I want you guys to take your squads there. There’s going to be a lot of humans and a lot of space to cover.”

“Why not Kaariss? He hasn’t taken a job in ages.”

“Because the last thing he needs is to be inspired by some fucking human plight.”

Laughter and sounds of agreement passed through the company, with someone yelling,  “The last thing  _ we _ need, you mean!” Kaariss, predictably, fumed at this mockery.

“You brutes just don’t appreciate art,” he said and crossed his arms, which prompted more jeering from the rest. Adaar would feel sorry for him if it weren’t for the fact that his poetry  _ was _ awful, more often than not.

“Where is this gathering taking place?” Adaar asked over the ruckus. Shokrakar blinked for a moment, then unfurled the scroll and skimmed through it.

“Some temple in Ferelden. Up in the mountains, it looks like. Apparently it’s a  _ conclave _ , not a gathering. Whatever that means.”

Katoh groaned. “Fuckin’ Ferelden,” she muttered. “Dirt, dirt, and more dirt. Snow on top of dirt.”

Adaar downed the rest of his drink, not sharing Katoh’s dismay. He hadn’t been to the Frostback Mountains before - was excited at the prospect of seeing someplace new - and as far as he was concerned it was easy money. Keeping the peace between a bunch of humans wouldn’t be too much trouble. All they’d have to do was stand around and look intimidating, which wasn’t very difficult when you were a head and then some above the average human. And if a fight broke out, it’d just make things less boring.

What’s the worst that could happen?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Inquisition_Theme.mp3]
> 
> Well. here we are. Thank you so, so, SO much for reading - and for all your kudos, comments, love and support. This marks the first time i’ve officially finished a multi-chaptered story. can you believe it? I can’t
> 
> A lot of deep-delving into feelings and scenarios were either shortened or cut altogether bc i’m trying to finish this damn it. yes i’ve deprived all of you of the sexy stuff this fic is staying M. nothing happened off-screen, though.
> 
> I _really_ want to write the sequel that spans the plot of Inquisition - which would potentially make this a series. I’m undecided as of right now but i do have lots of ideas and the urge is definitely there. Do i already foolishly have things written? Yes, yes i do.


End file.
